Semi-Final Vacay post: the real DR

While on vacation Jon and I decided to do a tour of the island because Jon loves tours of islands and I love Jon.  We settled on a tour that was supposed to show us the "real" Dominican Republic and it sure did!

We got picked up at 7:30am at our hotel and then got on this Spanish army truck.  It was bumpy, loud, and dirty.  In other words (Jon's words mostly), it was awesome!


Our first stop was at a real Dominican Republic house.

We had to drive for about 30 minutes before going off the "main" road and driving another 10 on a dirt road that barely fit our tour truck.  This tour company takes turns with various families every 6 months and pays them to let strangers wonder on their property and interrupt their lives.  I think it's kind of cool that they rotate the houses to make sure every one gets a little piece of the tourist money.

The house consists of a small hallway they call their living room and dining room, a couple of small bedrooms, and the newest addition - a bathroom with running water.  The walls are made from palm trees, while the roof is metal.  Their rooms are just big enough for a bed and sometimes some additional small furniture.  And yet, every single house has satellite TV!

The kitchen is in a separate hut outside the house.  Makes sense since it's about 70 degrees on the coolest day.  We drank some coffee, petted some puppies, I took pictures of flowers, and we got back on the truck.

This was along our drive - another house with a satellite dish.  Seriously, every house had a satellite dish.

On our drive, the Bartender passed out some drinks

I love the old Coca Cola bottles. So freaking cool!

We also got some snacks

These are sugar canes.  They taste like sugar.

Someone ordered a rum and coke.  It was like 9:30am, but hey, I'm not judging!  Anyways, I was a little curious about this drink since the Bartender was trying to open and hand out bottles while the truck went over a bumpy road.

Then our talented bartender grabbed a couple of bottles of Coca Cola, dumped some liquid off the side of the truck, and poured some rum into them.  Then he closed them back up, turned them upside down, and handed them out.  I couldn't stop laughing.

Then we kept driving.  And drinking.

These are the fields along our drive to the "producers".

And these are the piles of trash we encountered at almost every mile of our drive.  Dominican Republic doesn't have a recycling system but they're working really hard to take care of that and put one in place in the next 5 years.  Gross.

Ah!  This is a much better view.  I didn't realize that Punta Cana had so many mountains but they were everywhere.  In fact, we climbed one in our truck (barely!) for almost 30 minutes to get to our next destination.

As we kept driving, we started seeing everything from chocolate fruit, bananas, mangoes, to even coffee.  Along the ride, our Guide climbed out on top of the truck and grabbed some weird looking stuff.  Do you know what these are?

They're cashews!  It's okay - we literally had no clue this is how they grew.  You only get one cashew per fruit, which explains why they're so expensive.  And so delicious.

Our next step was at one of the 4 major producers on the island.

Our guide showed us how chocolate grew.  Did you know this was chocolate?

Each of these fruit hold these squishy little pockets that contain chocolate beans.

When you peal off this gross white coat of goo, you get this purple bean.  That's chocolate.

They lay those purple beans out in the sun for 3 days and they turn brown.

Then it gets ground up and you drink it.

It tastes delicious!  We bought some to bring home with us.

We also smelled some cinnamon.

Poked some pineapples.

Admired the sugar canes.

Smelled some fresh-ground coffee.

 Ate some fresh fruit.

Then bought a whole bunch of stuff.  We couldn't help it - come over and smell this chocolate and coffee and you'll understand.  Besides, as our Guide continued to remind us, we're helping their economy!

Our next stop - the ranch!

Kari's Quesadilla Casserole

I'm taking a quick break from posting about vacation to give you a delicious recipe.  Honestly, I'm still drooling so I thought it was only fair to share.

A little background - Kari, one of my close friends, the one that just got married (you can read about her wedding here and here), and I have Movie Wednesdays.  Every Wednesday we take turns cooking dinner, watching a chick flick that our husbands refuse to sit through with us, and drink about a bottle of white wine.  It's really a very good time.  Especially toward the end of the bottle.

One thing that you probably didn't know about my friend Kari is that she is a Veggie (a vegetarian to those of you who don't speak Kat).  Me?  I'm not even close!  When I think of Veggies, I think salads.  Well, Kari, being the unique self that she is, doesn't eat salads.  And she's a Veggie.  What the?!  Honestly, the first night I didn't know what to do with myself.  I wasn't sure there were meals that excluded meat!  It's been a rather awakening learning experience; one where I've learned to love love love Veggie food.

The first few nights I turned to Pioneer Woman and made Farfalle with Zucchini and Spaghetti with Artichoke Hearts and Tomatoes.  And then I died.  In fact, Jon and Kari died too (Jon gets a piece of our meal if he is home when I host; but he's banned to the basement).  I might need a moment to think back, wipe off the drool, and re-compose myself again.

Okay.  Back to Kari.  Kari made some totally amazing dishes too!  In fact, before our Wednesday Movie nights, I'd never eat beans.  Kari made me fall in love with beans in this delicious Quesadilla Casserole.The best part? It's so simple! And cheap!

You start with some tortillas (I like to eat healthy, so I choose whole wheat)

I got these on sale at Stop & Shop.

Then you throw in some cheese

This was on sale at Stop & Shop too.  I love Stop & Shop.

Then your choice of beans

I just found out that I like Kidney Beans. Yum!

Some Corn

Again, I choose the healthier route with no salt.

Some salsa

This is where you get to choose your spice level.  I went with medium.

And, if you're like me and have a love affair with Sour Cream and Avocados, you'll want some of those too.

Turn on the oven to about 350 degrees.  Then I grab a glass pie plate, spray it with some cooking spray for easy removal, then layer one of the tortillas at the bottom.  Throw on a handful of cheese, followed by half the can of bean and half the can of corn.  Then another tortilla, more cheese, rest of beans, and the rest of corn. Another tortilla and top with some cheese.  You can put the salsa right on here before cooking, but I love having the cold salsa with some avocados layered on top of the hot casserole while it's still cold.  Salsa or not, throw it in the oven for about 20-25 minutes to warm up the content.

While it's cooking, I cut up an avocado and add it to about half of the jar of salsa.

I love avocados.  Some days I eat them with a spoon.  I'm not joking.

The mushier, the better.  Then I just mix them in.  Then I eat it with a fork while Jon's not looking.

Then I peak at the casserole in the stove.  And wipe the drool.

Ding!

20 minutes later I pull out the casserole, layer it with my salsa and avocado and Voala

 Yum!  You can cut it up into smaller pieces, but I just cut it into 4 because Jon and I always go back for seconds.

I love this pile of goo.

And then if you're me and have a love affair with sour cream, you put a small dollop

Err...or half of the container on your plate.

Then dig in.

Iberostar Bavaro

Jon and I have been on a few vacations.  We went to Cancun when we first got together, Aruba for our honeymoon, Cali, Russia and now Dominican Republic.  This resort might be my favorite among all those vacations.

Iberostar Bavaro in Punta Cana is the place to be if you want gorgeous scenery, fun animals or birds, amazing big pools, long white sandy beaches, lots of salty water (if you're into that kinda thing), delicious food, entertainment in various places and for various ages and interests, and so much more.

This is the lobby view from the walk to the pool.

And here is what you see if you turn 180 degrees.  And there's Laura. Hi Laura!  Our room is a couple of blocks toward the beach and on the right.

These are just some of the creatures that roam the grounds.  We are all well aware that these are flamingos, but thanks to Jon, we all continued to call them pelicans throughout the vacation.

The pelicans often joined us for breakfast.  They loved cheese!  We tried feeding them everything from salami to bread, but they only took cheese and they took it right out of our hands.  It was kind of cool.

Generally, the flamingos were actually kind of dumb.  They spent the majority of their time either fighting with one another or moving little rocks from one place to another.

Here are some other creatures that often joined us for breakfast.  The cranes always look confused like you just called out their name and they're surprised to see you.  Then they bend their necks, stare at the water, and grab some fish.  They don't like cheese.

Here is some more scenery.  The stuff on the left is the Big Boy Buffet as Laura kept calling it, while on the right is the covered walkway that helped us walk around to our various restaurants without getting wet when it rained.

These are bananas.  They were in the courtyard.

The bananas have these weirdo big flowers at the bottom.  We honestly had no idea that this is how the bananas grew.

I mean we knew they grew on trees like this, but we didn't know about these weirdo flowers.

My daring husband poked one.

These were my favorite flowers.  They were puuuurty.

This is the walk to our room.

This is our room - it was on the second floor.  We liked it that way.

This is our room and the very comfy bed.

And a very convenient sitting area with one of my awesome towel birds.  This is how you know the hotels are really good - when they leave you nice towel birds with my favorite purty flowers.

The balcony was totally awesome too!  We spent almost every morning and every night out here, just enjoying the cool morning and night air.

The pool was huge and gorgeous.  On the right is the deep end where we sat and dipped our feet in.  Straight ahead is the smaller buffet with a bar and a swim-up bar.  Every day they had various activities around the pool from rifle shooting, "the drinking of the beer" contests, BINGO in over 6 languages, some funky game where people tried to run into the pool on a floating mat, and many many other games.  They started early and went on almost all day.  We participated in a couple of them.

They also had this crazy huge chess set.  I have very little idea about how to play chess, so we left this one for the other vacationers.

Jon and Alex participated in the drinking of the beers.  They lost.  To 14 year old boys.  From Belgium.

Just beyond the pool is the beach.  We walked around in every direction and this beach was by the the longest and widest.  The sand was clear white.  The water was see-through.

In the water were awesome little boats that made for some pretty cool pictures.

Parts of our beach were covered with cabanas that provided those of us that are naturally blond and fair and burn easily with shade and comfort.  Unfortunately, to get one of these we had to get up early and claim our spot with some strategically arranged towels.

Some of the more coveted cabanas were in the front and provided us with this view.  Thankfully, Jon and I rarely like to sleep in on our vacations.  Ah.  Gotta love the ocean from this far away. 

I really like flowers.  These were in the lobby.

Oh! Almost forgot.  For the avid golfers, Iberostar Bavaro provided a golf course that spanned for miles.  I ran along it in the morning and I swear it never ended.  There is also a gym, a spa, some jacuzzi, massages on the beach under shaded tents, palm trees galore and so much more.  I'm packing up my stuff to go back right now.

Tomorrow will be my last installation about our vacation for the time being.  While on vacation, Jon and I went on a tour of Dominican Republic and saw the "real" DR.

But more importantly, we saw how chocolate grows and gets processed.  Yum!