It’s a bright June afternoon…

…it never gets dark, wah-wah, here comes the sun.

Yes everyone, you have reached the second part (of how many, I don’t know yet) of my vacation diary. So far, I’ve only managed to tell you almost all there was to tell about Saturday, June 13th, the day of our departure from Amsterdam and our arrival in Punta Cana.
And I’d like to thank Gin for commenting on so many Photobucket pictures *smiles*. Thanks gall!

Here is a small “vid” I made (very quickly, I must add) of some vids and pictures. Enjoy!

Punta Cana, video 1

Sunday, June 14th 2009

Our room

Since we went to bed on Saturday around 9pm. we all were awake before 6am the following morning. I texted Wimpy, a Belgian Tour operator in Punta Cana, whom we contacted before we went on vacation. I informed him about our room number, since he already knew the hotel and duration of our stay. Around 6:50 the phone rang in our room. Joyce was our assistant and picked up the phone. It was Wimpy. If it would be possible for us to meet him around 7:15 in front of our hotel to plan the first tour. So we all got dressed and were there in time. While we were waiting, some people even thought that George was the “famous Belgian from the internet”. Hihi… when we met Wimpy, we made a deal that he’d call again on Wednesday, since we wanted to wait a few days before planning our first tour. We wanted to get adjusted to the time difference, the weather and above all, the sun.

Our beds

After meeting with Wimpy we quickly went to have breakfast. It was almost 13:30, Dutch time, so we were naturally quite hungry. There was a lot to chose from and we enjoyed every bite!

After that, we went around the park for a stroll. To check out what was where and above all: to find the beach!

The beach @ the IFA hotel

There Joyce and I checked out the water, by standing in it till knee height. The sand was not sharp and the water was really delightful. After a while we went back, took a quick peek in the fitness area at the spa. Then we went back to our room, changed into bathing clothing, grabbed towels, a ball, books and went towards the biggest pool. So that we were close by the reception, because of our welcome meeting with the Neckermann dude.

Joyce and me in the warm sea

We thought we had our welcome meeting at 10:30. But later, it turned out, it wasn’t until 10:45. After some info about the country, the sales talk started. We just nodded and checked out what we already were planning with Wimpy. We did not mention Wimpy’s name though. After that, we went to the guest service desk because our toilet refused to flush in a normal way. In the DR, the toilets are not designed to flush away the toilet paper as well. So we guess the people before us dumped their paper in there and when we did it too (since no one mentioned this fact to us until the next day)…it was getting quite stuck… We informed the people at the guest desk and later on we told our house keeper as well. At the end of the afternoon, it got fixed.

The rest of the afternoon was first spend at the big pool, where we ate some pizza slices and enjoyed some drinks. After a while we went closer to our room, to the Jacuzzi's. There we enjoyed the shade, some drinks and even a book.

Around 18:30 we went for our dinner. We believe the waiters and waitresses in the dining hall are allergic to (almost) empty glasses. Before you could finish the last drip, they were asking if you wanted a new drink already. After dinner we went to our room, where we read some, played some GameBoy/PSP and around 9pm we went to sleep.

Monday, June 15th 2009

George forgot to turn off the sounds of his cell phone, which made it go off between 2 and 3am. It was between 7 and 8 in the Netherlands, so quite a normal time… Luckily, George turned his cell off and after a while I fell asleep again. I woke around 6:30. It’s hard to get adjusted to the new time zone and the climate as well. Since we went to sleep quite early, it’s not strange that we woke quite early as well. We got dressed and grabbed all our beach stuff. Since we wanted to have some nice shady places, we were planning on heading straight to the beach after breakfast.

When we got all we needed, we went towards the dining hall. There was a cart passing along, which we went on towards the reception. George bumped his head again, just like the first night we arrived, to the metal frame that’s holding up the cart’s roof. After breakfast, Joyce and I went to the toilet and George used our towel cards to get us 3 hotel towels to take along to the beach.

We found 3 nice places on the beach, which we later traded for even better places. We made some pictures, some of which can be seen below this text *winks*.

George & Joyce enjoying the sea

George & Joyce with the palm trees

My feet in the sand, while sitting on my beach bed

We played with the ball in the lovely warm ocean and we grabbed some drinks at the “Club de Playa” beach bar / restaurant. Joyce and I read our books and George was busy playing Tetris while we were on our beach chairs.

Early afternoon we headed towards the pools. It was way too hot to stay in the sun at the beach all the time. Joyce, George and I tried to walk bare footed towards the pools, but after a while we definitely needed our slippers! It was so freaking hot that you could almost hear your feet sizzle when you stood still for half a second too long.

We found some decent shaded places at the big pool, placed our towels there and headed towards the diner for lunch. Seeing our egg-chef sometimes used a “bit too much salt”, I already used my Spanish small travel dictionary to see if I could find the correct words to tell our chef to use just a little bit of salt. This would be: “poco la sal”. And he did understand it *smile*.

When I was in the “pasta line” there was a German chick behind me. We had a small conversation and she seemed quite nice. Actually, she was quite nice, her girlfriend (or just friend, we aren’t sure) was just a big b*tch… Interested? Just keep reading, hihi…

After lunch, it was just too hot at the pool, so George said we should go back to the Jacuzzi's. They have a screen over them, which provides some shades in the Jacuzzi’s. So we grabbed our stuff and went back to bubbles.

George and me in one of the Jacuzzi's

Because I was not feeling all too well, I took the key to the room and went back there alone. I rushed to the toilet and felt sand everywhere… So I took a quick shower after that. And then, back to the bubbles. After some drinks, the sun was getting a bit lower again, and we went back to the big pool. There, George found his water shoes back, which he forgot when we left the big pool earlier that day.

Eating a pizza slice

After a slice of pizza, Joyce and I went in the pool and threw our ball and enjoyed a drink. The German gall I met earlier that day was at the pool bar with her female friend. They were getting quite drunk and it was quite funny. After a while, a lot of men were made quite happy. The galls were so drunk, they were kissing and flirting on the pool bar and after a while, they were even topless… George was a happy man *winks*.

The drinks @ IFA

After a while we left the pool to dry and enjoy some more drinks, while watching the girls getting quite an audience. And I made some pictures of George & Joyce near the big fountain.

George & Joyce @ the big fountain @ the big pool

After a while we went back to the room to get ready for dinner. Change clothes and all. Then we went to dinner. After dinner we saw the German girls again. The one I chatted with earlier was most sober and still quite nice. But that friend really got a hangover and was being a total b*tch! It was very bad German language she was using and I did have to refrain myself from not saying something nasty back in German. As I do know some not very nice German phrases… The nice gall kept apologizing and after a while we went back to our room.

George playing with my PSP

Joyce and I wrote in our vacation journal and George played some more on my PSP. Around 9:30pm we closed our eyes for another night in Punta Cana.