cabarete parking ticket

so, today veronica and i made the mistake of double parking in the center of cabarete. i was dashing off to quickly grab us a pastry, while veronica went 5 steps away from the car to exchange some money. when i return to the car, i see an official looking person dressed in green, telling veronica to provide her driver's license. now realize that the idea of the having to deal with the cops here is not a great one. the first thoughts are, how much money is this guy going to ask for on the spot to not write up a ticket? the next thought is, who the hell gets a parking ticket in cabarete? that's like arresting someone for jaywalking in boston! it just does not happen!

i look around at the various shopkeepers, including our money exchange guy, and everyone is looking nervous. not a good sign. the official continues to write out a ticket while veronica and i both now wait in the car. we exchange a quick few "now remember to say that we're just on vacation here...."

he hands us the ticket, says nothing, and leaves. phew! but what is the ticket gonna cost? veronica drives off while i look at it. it is in spanish of course, but i can make out the gist of it. it says we have a court date on feb 29, 2006. ok, dude, that day does not even exist. how will the dominican officials deal with that? should we show up on feb 28? or march 1? i'm thinking, it will get lost in the system and then we'll get arrested or something because of his error. the ticket also has no instructions on WHERE to go for the court date. at this point, we both decide that we'll just talk to Guido (Juan's brother, the lawyer), figuring that he'll know what to do and who to pay off if we need to settle it that way.

at the office, we actually find out from pablo that all we need to do is go to city hall and pay the ticket. everyone in the office has a different idea on what the fine will be, so we're still a bit anxious about how much they will charge a gringo.

after doing a few things in the office, we go around the corner to city hall. now this whole scene is worth getting on camera. the trouble is of course they do not want you to take pictures. using a camera would be too obvious. so what do i do? whip out the camera phone!

the court room was located off a dirt courtyard where there were a couple of old, non-working construction machines. running around in the courtyard were some chickens - gotta love that! we hand the ticket to some lady whose desktop computer background, i think, shows vlad guererro batting against the yankees. she can't read the ticket because the writing is too faint. after going outside into the light, she just starts walking over to the other side of the courtyard. we go into this small room with a tiny desk and some plastic chairs, for i guess, if there are many people paying a fine at once. when she went into another room , i quickly grabbed a few photos. here is the desk where she settled the fine and the courtyard area.





the fine in the end....130 pesos (about $4.00)! i think we both were expecting to have to pay a bit more and were quite relieved to have the whole experience behind us. though we certainly got a kick out of the experience.