Samaná, Dominicana
After 2 nights in Punta Cana, The Greek Resort hotel called a taxi to take me to the bus station and paid for it. I don’t know if it was the hotel policy to provide free transportation or if they did that because the visitors were so few that they took the utmost care of them.
The bus from Punta Cana to Santo Domingo was a modern, clean and comfortable double-decker. The ride was 3 hours and cost $5. For comparison, the taxi is about $1 per minute. I made no hotel reservation in Santo Domingo and got off the bus as close as possible to Zona Colonial (Old Town).
I walked a little in no specific direction and came across an office of InterCaribbean Airlines. I was supposed to fly this airline to Cuba in 3 days. I thought that it would be a good idea to check that they still operated flights to Cuba and walked in. A lovely looking young woman told me in perfect English that my flight was cancelled. The airline for some reason failed to notify me about that.
Cuba experienced a sharp increase in COVID cases and limited the numbers of flights. The next available flight would be on January, 23 and it could be cancelled too. So there goes my golden dream to visit Cuba!
The flight cancellation at the time of the pandemic was not a complete surprise and I had a Plan B to go to Curacao that recently opened its borders for tourists. The flight to Curacao on January, 19 was fully booked; the next flight was on January, 26 which meant staying in Dominicana for 2 more weeks. I needed to think what to do, so I asked the agent to issue a refund for the flight to Cuba and left the office.
But first things first ‒ where was I going stay in Santo Domingo? Google Maps showed Mauad Hotel Boutique nearby for $55/night that was built to look like a castle. My room on the first floor had no window that did not bother me at all. Everything else in the room was good and breakfast was included.
After dinner, I studied travel restrictions of other Caribbean islands and bought a ticket to fly on January, 16 to Puerto Rico that did not require to quarantine on arrival and only asked for a negative COVID test result done within 72 hours.
Where could I do a COVID-19 test in Santo Domingo? The hotel manager arranged it for me to take it on the following morning for $120 (cash only!). That included a taxi to the lab and back to the hotel. It is interesting how the test fee varies from country to country. In Bulgaria, I paid 40 euros, in Greece 80 euros, and the test was free in Barbados.
I barely finished my breakfast next morning when the taxi already came. The driver did not speak English and my Spanish is rudimentary. He gestured that I should pay $120 as soon as I got into the car.
‘No,’ I said, ‘I’ll do the test first and then I’ll pay you.’
The driver did not understand my words but he got that I was not paying. He kept asking for the money while driving through busy streets and I continued to maintain that I could not pay beforehand. So, we argued like this in a friendly manner, in our own languages, and neither of us wanted to give in.
Half an hour later, we arrived at some place. The driver indicated that I should leave the car. I looked around trying to figure out which of these shabby, clinging to each other houses could be a medical laboratory. My driver disappeared when I turned away. Hmm, now what? I had no idea in what part of Santo Domingo I was.
I opened one door; it looked like some business. A young man said something in Spanish and closed the door. I tried a door in the next building; it turned out to be a small bank. People gathered around me and jointly worked out that I needed to go to the hospital for this test. They wrote down the hospital’s address on a scrap of paper.
I left the bank holding that paper in my hand. The taxi driver reappeared out of nowhere, threw away the paper with the address and showed that I should get back into the car. We rode in silence another 10 minutes to the laboratory. A COVID test was done quickly; the result would be posted online on the following day.
The driver took me back to the hotel. He did not mention the money again and even tried to be my guide as much as his English and my Spanish allowed that. I gave him $120 before getting out of the car. We smiled at each other and both sighed with relief. He probably was worried that he would not be paid as much as I was worried that it was a scam. The stop at the bank confused me a lot. Did the driver think that I had to get cash there? This is what happens when you have a language barrier.