in transit

here's Veronica in Punta Cana while we were in transit for 24 hours. yes, 24 HOURS. here's the story...so we were off to Holland as it was Veronica's dad's birthday celebration. we thought we likely had a stop before Amsterdam but did not know for sure. for some reason, the Martinair ticket did not say where we would be stopping, but the length of the trip was too long to be non-stop. most likely it was going to be Punta Cana on the south coast of the DR. little did we know that the stop would become a BIG DEAL.

we boarded in Puerto Plata, went for 30 minutes, landed in Punta Cana and then had to deplane so they could clean up the plane and put on food. the layover would be for 2 hours and more passengers would be joining us also there. well, apparently upon arriving in Punta Cana, something happened to one of the wheels and all the oil leaked out. they tell us this in 4 languages - English, Dutch, German, and Spanish - about 10 minutes before we are supposed to board. they say it will take 45 minutes to an hour to see if they can fix it and then the fix would minimally take 2-3 hours or POSSIBLY they might not be able to fix it and they would then have to put us up in a hotel and leave 24 hours later. WHAT? :-(

ok, so we cross our fingers and think about all the stuff we will be missing by arriving a whole day later. everyone else on the plane is going home from vacation of course while we are missing a day of our vacation. the hour goes by and of course the answer is we're putting you up in a hotel. they say we'll meet you at the hotel tomorrow night at 5pm to give you the next set of plans. BUMMER!

so off all 200+ of us go to pick up our luggage and go through immigration. the immigration officer does his job very thoroughly for the first 10 people, checking every page of their passports and then stamping them through. i'm swearing, thinking we'll be in the line for forever and to be in the airport on that side, we had to have shown our passports to begin with. there are no other flights now, we are the only plane and the immigration people know the deal. this is the first of Dominican logic that i think we are going to encounter and am wondering how the check-in of 200+ people will go at the hotel.

surprisingly the buses are in front of the airport ready for us and we all go off in 4 buses to the hotel. murphy's law that our bus is the last of the 4 to depart the airport and thus is the last of the 4 to get to the hotel, which means we will be last to check in. Veronica seems to be taking it all much better than me.

well, the hotel check-in actually happens really quickly and then surprisingly the hotel is NICE! the beach is killer! not that we have our bathing suits because remember we are going to our vacation in Holland not coming from our vacation in the DR. we went swimming the next day nonetheless in our underwear that looks close enough to bathing suits and no one noticed or maybe they didn't care, as they're Europeans and can deal with toplessness nevermind unconventional bathing suits.

here's the beach. not too tough to spend a few hours IN TRANSIT, huh?

we didn't actually hang out on the beach. instead we took advantage of being in Punta Cana to tour the area with one of our colleagues from C21, Dean, who just moved there to work within our new office there. so we worked! he took us around to see a villa at the Punta Cana Resort, which was connected with our hotel and is also where it is rumored that Bill & Hillary Clinton are buying. That's in a different part of the resort over by where Oscar de la Renta lives. we both were very impressed by the Punta Cana Resort. that is the original resort that was developed in Punta Cana and the same people built the Punta Cana airport too.

we also went to Cap Cana which is just an ENORMOUS development with golf courses, a marina, condos, villas & bungalows, land, etc. we went up to the area where Trump is selling lots - high up on a bluff overlooking the whole project. i can't say i loved Cap Cana, but i can see how people can be sold on it.

Dean drove us around Bavaro also. we saw the outsides of many all-inclusives and not much of a town, which was in line with what we thought it would be like. we also saw the new C21 office and then had lunch at Hard Rock Cafe which is in a shopping mall. while we were having lunch, i kept thinking how i could be anywhere and certainly not in the DR. i think i like Lax, eZe Bar, and Marabu a bit better with your feet in the sand. Punta Cana would not be for me nor for Veronica. it was fantastic though that we got to see it and now can talk to clients about it from firsthand knowledge versus what we heard it to be like. the thing that struck me the most though there was how much construction was going on. TOO MUCH. with much of it happening away from the beach and with it being difficult to get to a beach as the all-inclusives block you from it. the prices are HIGH for what you get. all in all it confirmed my belief that the North Coast is a better place to hang out and buy. but neither one of us is an all-inclusive type. i am a beach gal - give me access to the beach first and foremost and a funky town like Cabarete to hang out in!

we finally did arrive in Holland yesterday at 1:00pm - 28 hours LATE. they diverted a plane from Cancun to pick us up. more shenanigans around that plane and more delays, but i won't go into that. all in all we could have been stuck in worse places. it was just strange to go 30 minutes away by plane, be in the same country, and then be stuck. when you can't beat 'em, join 'em and enjoy that gorgeous beach and get in a free business research trip!