carless in cabarete

here's a good example of how service is handled here in the DR. we take our car to this mechanic to have some work done on it. he is a british expat who lives in a very dominican section of sosua and operates his business out of his house. in terms of this neighborhood, we're talking dirt roads, chickens running around, many houses half built and many not painted so they look like ugly concrete structures. some other C21 people had recommended him, so we went with his services.

we drop off the car on thursday morning and are told that it will be done by friday afternoon. so, friday afternoon, we call and ask, "how is the car?"

response: "oh, i've been trying to call you. i ordered the wrong part, and i can only get the new part on monday. i took the old part out of the car and am not able to put it back in. so, your car won't be ready until end of the day on monday."

WHAT? you disassembled the part before you had the correct one? and now at 4:00pm on friday afternoon, you're telling us we won't have our car all weekend? also, we have a client on monday and need the car! we had to take the gua-gua home last night from sosua, which was a new experience. night time driving in a minivan without lights and packed to the gills. luckily we made no stops prior to just outside cabarete, so it was a bit of an express gua-gua. who knew they existed? v had lots of cashola on her to pay the mechanic, so it was tights hands around the bag. meanwhile v is receiving important phone calls from clients and having to shout above the bachata music. "i'm in a local bus, sorry for the noise."

all a pain in the ass.... so now we have to rent a car to be able to take the clients out on monday. hope they buy or else it's money down the drain. it's a couple that also wants to bring along another couple. so on top of it all, we need a fairly sizable rental car.

there is a C21 agent who does not own a car (amazing that you can have this job and not have a car but that's a different story). she rents a car off this guy who rents out his own car. i think that's quite smart of that guy, as he probably does not need his car all the time and can make some money that way. she looked into us renting his car. turns out that his car is rented out for the next week, so that is out as an option.

so, we are off now to the car rental place here in cabarete. we'll be sure to write about our experiences with the rental car agency, as i bet all will not go smoothly there.