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!