Dominican Republic~ day 7

Matt wanted to go deep sea fishing while we were in the DR.  He mentioned it to our driver, Dario, who gave us a number of a guy to call.  We woke up pretty early, which I wasn't happy about.  If you're picturing some fancy fishing boat with huge fishing poles and catching giant fish, that can't be further from what we did.  This kid pulls up in a beat up old aluminum jon boat.  We hop in and he drives us out a ways from the shore, we drop anchor and he handed us the most rudimentary fishing "poles" you could imagine, just a spool of fishing line, literally!  I was like, 'are you serious right now?'  He rigged them up with weights and hooks and we got to fishing.  Within minutes, I felt a tug on my line so I started rolling up my line and lo and behold, I had TWO fish!!!  These were red speckled fish and the ugliest things I'd ever seen!  Of course I had to do the traditional "fish kiss" picture.

I kept pulling in fish after fish while Matt was trying to be patient. He even busted out the fishy dance!  Meanwhile, I was trying not to barf as we sat out in the ocean, rocking and swaying.

My compromise was that if Matt got to do his fishing trip, I wanted to go zip lining.  Matt said it's such a fad thing, to go zip lining, blah blah blah, but I wanted to do something thrilling and this fit the bill.  We booked through Bavaro Runners.  They picked us up from our resort in this safari looking vehicle (open air, no windows) and took us to Punta Cana.  We passed miles and miles and miles of sugar cane, the principle agricultural product of the country.

As we got closer and were driving up the mountain, little kids would smile and wave and yell out, "Hola!"  I seriously wanted to snatch one of these cute faces right up and take them home with me!  As I looked around as we drove through the towns, the houses are tiny and ramshackle.  The families here live in straight up poverty conditions.  The people here (kids even!) work hard for their money, either selling merchandise or offering services.... but these kids don't know any different and they seem happy.  And here I've been frustrated that our internet connection has been sketchy, hello wake up call.  We have SO SO much, living in the U.S.

These half-built cinder block structures are everywhere.  They just build a little at a time, I guess.

We arrived at our destination and got geared up for our zip line adventure!  It was so lush and green at this part of the island!  Zip lining was just as fun as I had imagined it would be!  Turns out my slight fear of heights didn't apply here, thank goodness.  There are 12 lines total and I guess this is the longest zip line in the Caribbean!  On the last run, there are side-by-side lines so Matt and I got to race each other!  He flew down like a rocket and I didn't quite make it all the way to the end.  haha

Once we got back to the resort, we change into our swim suits and headed to the pool.  We grabbed drinks and a few snacks and just lounged, soaking up our last evening in the Dominican Republic.

FaceTiming Hayden before bed