My experience in DR

Hi, I am a 32 years old man from Italy and I live in Guadeloupe with my girlfriend.

The two of us and a friend visited Dominican Republic for 10 days in November. The idea was to do some sport climbing, since the 3 of us are passioned about it and there is not much to climb in Guadeloupe.

We have been in 3 areas: Samana (Las Galeras and Playa Fronton), Yaguate (climbing in a canyon called Conde de Mana) and Bayahibe (climbing in the national park just behind the town).

What I want to say:

• Your country is stunning, some places are really amazing and we had a very good time
• Very loud music! :D Something we did not even try getting into some bars as there was music blasting even in the afternoon
• We enjoyed changing from our usual breakfast of togurt and granola and adopting local empanadas and amazing fruits (huge avocadoes, super tasty cinola...)
• The bad part, on our travel back to the airport, from Bayahibe, we got stopped 2 times by the police. We were going at steady 85 km/h on the highway. The first patrol stopped us and told us that the limit was 80... We were surrounded by so many cars going faster than us and we did not see any road sign about the speed limit... but we said, okay... maybe we are actually in the wrong. Obviously we were going to the airport so the police says "you cannot leave with a hanging ticket, you should get in Santo Domingo and pay it... unless..." well they took 20 USD from us and they let us go. 10 minutes later (look, now we are going at 80 km/h) we get stopped again. The patrol tell us thet we were going at 67 km/h and that was too slow (we were suppoed to go between 80 and 100 km/h) so again the same story and again other 20 USD.

In a nutshell, lovely country, good food, good people... But the police taking advantage of us really bothered us.