Stepping Out of the Boat

Another Saturday in the D.R. another adventure. Today was the first day that we actually got a good look at some of the things the Colonial Zone had to offer. For those avid blog readers you may recall in an earlier episode that we have in fact been to this part of town before but it was late at night and we didn't get to see too much. We left our apartment today around 2:30 hoping that we were able to beat some of the heat, yeah right. Yvonne and her family picked us up and we headed to the oldest and most historic part of the island. Our first stopped landed us at the Fortress of Santo Domingo. Here you can see The Tower of Homage, which was built along the coast in 1502 as the last fortification built by the Spaniards as they finished the exploration of the island from North to South. Because it is located on a steep bank overlooking the river and the sea its function was closing and defending the port between the river and the ocean. We were actually able to walk throughout the entire building and surrounding fortress area. If you click on the "Other Videos and Picture" site on our blog you will see more picture from inside this building. It was incredible to us to think that we were walking around in places that soldiers did over 500 years ago. Here you can see a view from out a window on the second floor as it is overlooking the river and the ocean in the distance background.
We were actually able to walk out onto the roof that you see here in this picture as well as out to the lookout place just beyond that. We really enjoyed ourselves here but the heat was almost enough to knock you off your feet. From here we left to walk around the area a little bit, mostly to find a Cormado, which are little convience stores located all over the island, for some water.
On the way we pasted by what could best be called a memorial building with sites and stone slabs remembering some of the great leaders on the nation. This is a picture that was taken inside of this memorial.
We all agreed that we would come back again on a day that wasn't so hot to see the rest of the sites here. However before we were completly done with our adventure, Yvonne and her husband Nelson wanted to so us the Mercado where we could buy some painting if we were interested. This Mercado was located inside a small building but with many, many, many vendors set up everywhere and very little ventilation. All the vendors wanted you to come into thier little store area to see what they had to offer. Lukily for us Nelson knew a couple people there that he had bought painting from in the past and was able to help us get some good deals on some things. This picture below is one of the paintings that Claire and I had our eyes on. We really like the style and colors of these paintings.
This was one of the paintings that we really liked however the picture of the "goddess" in the center wasn't something that we were thrilled with. Again it is lucky for us that Nelson was there because he talked with the seller into having the artist, who like most of the other artist are very local if not are in the building, into painted this same picture but replacing the goddess with anther image of our choice. It should be ready next weekend. We are really excited about the discovery of these painting for a couple reasons. 1. Now we finally have something to hang on our completly bare celery green walls that we have been staring at for a month now. 2. These styles of painting come in various sizes, shapes, colors, and pictures so we will be able to decorate with a variety. and 3. They are really inexpensive. This painting that is shown here is about 3 feet tall and 4 feet long and we are able to get it for 600 pesos which is only $18. Again if you look at our other picture page there are a couple other pictures of some paintings we were looking at.
We finished our day by heading back to a place closed to Yvonnes house called Picola which had a burger type sandwhich called a chimi that is pork with cabbabe, carrots, onions, and a coupe different types of secret sauses on it. It was really good way to end a day and we were glad to hear that there is another Picola close to our place that delivers.