Puerto Plata - The Second Part of the Marysol Tour

Continuing with the Marysol Tour

Colorful souvenir shop

Red light with countdown timer

Selling fruit from a truck

Funeral For The Well Off

Next we went to the Cathedral of St Philip the Apostle (I didn't understand what it was in Spanish, so I looked it up on Google maps on my cell phone), and went in to look around (and have our photos taken if we desired).

Cathederal

Central Square

Dog asleep by the ramp to the Cathedral

Main altar

Baptismal font

Stained glass in St. Philip the Apostle

In the square in front of the Cathedral, there was a gazebo

Artist painting La Glorieta (the gazebo) - Amber Museum in the background

and two statues (one of General Luperón and the second one of Juan Pablo Duarte )

Statue of General Gregorio Luperón

Juan Pablo Duarte statue and our guide getting ready to take photo of a group

Jerry and Bonnie and their group looking at a statue

and there was an opportunity to feed the pigeons so Lynde did that and I got a photo of her with a pigeon on her head.

putting the food in her hand

Lynde with a pigeon on her head (and hand)

Characters for a photo op

We were held up here by the lady from Edenton who was arguing with the guide about something. The houses around the square are sometimes referred to as "Victorian" although they were built long after the end of Queen Victoria's reign

House near central square

I took a photo of this car thinking it was a police car. But really it stands for Cuerpo Especializado de Seguridad Turística which is apparently a branch of the military in charge of tourist security i.e. keeping tourists safe.

CESTUR car

By this time (since we had to wait for the lady with the broken back everywhere) it was quite late - about 1:30. So we stopped for lunch near the waterfront.

Malecon Sea Side Walk

The Edenton lady and her husband stayed on the bus because he wasn't happy about eating local food. But we were at an outside table right next to the bus and they could have gotten off and joined us and just had a Sprite or something.

Guide taking our photo

Picture taken by our guide - I'm at the head of the table

I had the "Dominican breakfast" which consisted of two fried eggs, a piece of ham, a piece of cheese and what seemed like creamed potatoes.

Dominican breakfast

Lynde had chicken cordon blue and tried the fried plantains, but she didn't like them and I ate one - I LIKE plantains, and these weren't good ones. They were breaded and kind of soggy instead of crisp.

After lunch we were to go to the cigar factory (aka Vivonte Cigar Factory & Lounge). Which was right around the corner, Eventually it was decided to ride there on the bus because I couldn't guarantee that I could walk that distance, and the lady from Edenton was still on the bus. We exited the bus and I didn't get the scooter out. I just walked in and sat down.

Vivonte Cigar Factory & Lounge

Then the group went upstairs for a demonstration. So I followed them. The second part of the stairs didn't have a railing on both sides for me to hold onto, so I want up on hands and feet, but there was no one watching because the lady from Edenton was still downstairs and everyone else was already up there. I did take some photos.

Cigar maker

Making a cigar

Cigar maker smoking a cigar

Cigar making machine

Finished cigars

Then as we were about to leave, the lady from Edenton decided she needed to go to the bathroom, so that delayed us some more as this was quite a long procedure. She had been in the bathroom so long at the rum factory that I was afraid she had fallen and needed help.

The last place we went was to a fort, and I decided not to go in

Approaching the fort

Entrance to Fort San Felipe

One of the sentry towers

Fort wall

I should have brought my cane and then I could have done the fort too. I did get some photos of an old lighthouse.

Puerto Plata Light

and also a telephoto shot of the

Statue of General Gregorio Luperón

There were a lot of street vendors here and also at the restaurant.

Souvenir sellers and a donkey

Man who approached me as I sat in the van

Then the lady from Edenton wanted to go back to the ship. I wanted to do the cable car and some of the others wanted to go to the beach. It was very windy and rough so they decided not to go to the beach, and apparently the cable car went up and then it would be 30 minutes before you could get back down, and I didn't want to stay up there - just go up and come down.

So I didn't insist (and Marysol later refunded our money for that part of the tour) and they just took us back to the port. We drove back out into the country. A man got on the van and checked all our IDs and they took us all the way in to the place where the buses and taxis left from. Fredrico (the main guy from Marysol) called on the phone to talk to us. The Edenton lady complained about how far she had to walk. He later told me that she should not have been sold the tour - it was unsuitable for her.

Lyndee did some shopping.

Lynde looking at the shops

Man waiting for his wife (at first I thought he was a cardboard cutout

And then she got a rickshaw ride back to the ship and we got ready for dinner.

Lynde in the bike ahead of me

At dinner, they had the nice rolls with cranberries in them which I like, but Lynde doesn't (so I can have them all).

Cranberry rolls

I had snails as an appetizer which grossed Lynde out. They were good.

Snails appetizer

Short ribs

I also had braised short ribs which were nice and tender. And then there was cheesecake for dessert.

Selfie in the elevator mirrors

I took some photos of the artwork around the ship.

Then we went to bed, because early tomorrow we have Grand Turk