We arrived in La Romana, in the Dominican Republic at around 8am. I had to be up early for customs formalities – the only person disembarking. I said my goodbyes to Rosa (Roberta was busy) and headed to the capital, Santo Domingo. Bye bye Costa Fortuna. The coach had a blowout, so the broken old tyre was replaced (in record time mind you) by a spare that was balder than an extra from Alien³.
Ah – back in Latin America! Spanish, crazy drivers, deafening music, and, yup, baseball. But this is still the Caribbean, so it’s still waist-deep in fried chicken.
From Santo Domingo, I got a coach straight up to Puerto Plata, the harbour in the north near Luperon, from where I was told the yachts depart from.
There wasn’t enough time to get to Haiti and back today, so I met up with a guy called Mehrdad, a couchsurfer who hails from Iran (and is quite possibly the only Iranian Sushi chef in the entire Caribbean) and attempted to organise passage to Cuba or Jamaica for the next day. We called a guy who called a guy who called a guy – nada. I steeled myself for a long stay. Mehrdad put me up for the night.
