La Republica Dominicana and Puerto Rico

Amidst the craziness of getting back into the swing of school, we have been really missing the beach and have found ourselves reminiscing about our trip to the D.R. And, since it has been a month since we have been back from our trip, it's about time to blog about it. 

Our priorities were: 1) beach, and 2) history. We decided to go to a beach near Santo Domingo, which happens to be the site of the first colonial government in the Americas. To keep it safe, we chose an all-inclusive resort. 

Our room was awesome.

The toilet was not as awesome. The sign says that you should not throw the toilet paper in the toilet. A constant reminder of being in a Latin American country. 

Kenz enjoying the balcony from our room. 

A view of the beach from our balcony. 

We had a day tour of Santo Domingo that included a visit to some caves called "Los tres ojos," or "The Three Eyes." The native population of the island would use these caves as shelter during storms, and use the pools of water at the bottom for bathing. 

The stairs descending into the cave.

Kenz loved the cave if you can't tell from this picture.

We actually both really liked the cave. One of our favorites from the trip.

There was an iguana living there.

And they had this really cool Harry Potter-esque pair of boats to take you from the third pool to a fourth that is in the darkness.

After the cave adventure, we continued on to the city of Santo Domingo. 

El Faro de Colon ("Columbus' Lighthouse"). I think they said there were some of Colombus' remains in there.

A view from the front window of the tour van. This is one reason why I love Latin America.

A cool cannon in the old city of Santo Domingo. 

Inside a cathedral. Francisco Franco, the Spanish dictator, gave the chandelier to Rafael Trujillo, the then dictator of the Dominican Republic.

A statue of Columbus outside the same cathedral.

The restaurant where we ate lunch. Very colorful.

This lady was dancing and spinning on the top of a bottle.

And we got to go by the temple since we were the only tourists on the tour. 

Cool paintings that were everywhere. Yes, we succumbed and bought one (not pictured). 

Our trip back to Washington was just as eventful, even more that we would have liked it to have been. But, it included a trip to the beautiful island of...

PUERTO RICO!

View from plane.

An aerial view of San Jose.

Bridge with the Puerto Rican flag. 

We couldn't resist getting our passports stamped in Puerto Rico. I think it was fair for making us sit in the airport for 3 hours longer than expected, and not getting us home until around 1 a.m. (And that was after being flown into BWI and taking a cab back to Virginia. At least we got back, and American Airlines paid for the taxi fare.) That story is for another day.