April 5, 2010 | Posted in Blog, Life, Photography, Travel

Photo Journalism: A Visit to Dominican Republic

Punta Cana is a city on the southeast side of the Dominican Republic. It’s one of the more well-known travel destinations in the Caribbean, known for its white sanded beaches, the warm water, the Caribbean color and its culture. I stayed at the Majestic Elegance Club with my fiancé. We booked an excursion from the resort lobby, which allowed us to go off the resort and have a genuine feeling of an authentic Dominican lifestyle, and not just beaches.

Majestic Elegance Cub Pool, Punta Cana

During the excursion, we got a ride for the whole day aboard a huge 6 wheel-truck with other tourists. Our tour guide, Sam, was very informative and funny. He told us about Dominican culture, products, history and even the people as we traveled from town to town and into the mountains.

Mountain view on the side

At our first stop we were shown a typical Dominican house. Houses are slightly separated from each other and were made of wood and painted with vibrant colors. The house we visited consisted of a living room connected to the indoor kitchen and single bedroom. The house was not too big, but the family seemed to be happy. You may also find an unused outdoor kitchen, and lots of banana trees. After touring the house, we continued on to our next stop.

A typical Dominican house we visited

Dominican house indoor kitchen

Outside the Kitchen

Houses around the countryside

Store front

Furniture store

The next stop was the sugar cane plantations. You can see huge plantations where the sugar cane extended for miles. Sam explained that sugar cane production is one of the major economic activities on the inner island. They produce black and white sugar, which are used to produce rum, one of the Dominican Republic’s typical drinks. We continued on into the mountains, where coffee beans and cocoa beans are grown. We made a stop to sample some of the agricultural products. We were able to sample some fresh hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was delicious.

Sugar can field

Coco beans growing from the trees

Sam explain how the open the coco and get the beans out

The snake man put the snakes on my fancé

We also visited a local village school. The children were all wearing the same uniforms. It’s typical in the Dominican to have school uniforms for the children. The children are quite friendly and allowed us to take pictures with them. We eventually stopped at “Mi Lola” Ranch and did a little shopping at the souvenir shops and did a little horse back riding also.

Children at the school

Children at the school took picture with us

Children at the school

Souvenir shop

Souvenir on display

After leaving the ranch, we rumbled though the countryside on roads and the people smiled and waved. The children seemed very excited and ran out to waved to us as we rode though the towns. Then we arrived at our last stop, the Macao beach, a public beach in Dominican.

Ice Cream man in Dominican

Kid waving to us

Macao beach, a public beach in Dominican

Traveling to a new places can be a great way to get inspired again. There are literally thousands of things to be inspired by when traveling. Food, music, photography, art, culture, architecture…the list could go on forever. A change of scenery can always get my creative juices up running in a good way. This was a great trip!