not to make anybody jealous but a few hours ago i finished what may have been one of my nicest road rides while vacationing in dominican republic. before we left the lv i packed up a bike at the last second so i wouldn't go stir crazy. turns out, i'm glad i did. even though the worker at punta cana airport who searched my luggage didn't agree. his words, amaricana. translation- i can't believe this gringo couldn't leave home without his bicycle. what a fruitcake.
the ride started in punta cana and my goal was to, number one , not get hit and number two, make it to the next major city, Higuey. The first 45 minutes pretty much sucked. there are skinny roads with big drop offs along the shoulders. People drive like maniacs and most of them on 80cc motorbikes. the two stroke actually starts to burn your lungs. There were some points i was actually more comfortable riding on a fixie between two buses down 5th ave in nyc than here. After getting out of the coastal area things got very scenic except for one dead dog along the road. i got to see a family of 4 all squeeze onto one of these mopeds things. i saw lots of beautiful farms, cute little villages, and a dude almost clipping my head with a tail of a swordfish. thats right, a swordfish. he had a cooler on the back of his scooter and these fish hung from the sides like 3 feet which almost clipped me. i saw a road detour which could only exist down here. a bridge was out and everybody was detoured through some dudes farm which included a stream crossing. it was absurd. check out the pic.
So, i pretty much made it to my goal but decided to head a different direction. it was time to turn around but noticed i was only 10 miles from the coast again, then 7 miles north of our motel. at this point i decided a loop was the was to go and kept going . i hit the coast , then a sand road , then a huge fence. oh crap. too late to turn around, so i searched another route. I was thinking of walking the beach, but it was nothing but cliffs at this point. i started back the sand road and found an offshoot dirt road. this went on for a while and seemed to be going through some private property. i stopped and took some pesos from my wallet to my spandex for some quick bribing , just incase. i got lucky. i had to go through a cement plant but that connected to a real road . i got to draft a dumptruck for 15 minutes back to town with plenty od daylight left. see what tomorrows journey brings???? xrlx
