Initially I wasnt going to write a Trip Report but I dont want to be too much of a lurker since sites like this have made it possible for me to have these types of trips in the first place. This year Ive been to Sosua Two Times, once in March from I believe the 11th until the 20th or 21st and recently I went from June 3rd to June 12. This isn't my first time but I wanted to share some thoughts I had on a couple topics while I was out there.
I - Politur
On this most recent trip I had an incident that kind of shocked me since I had only read about the politur arresting chicas and I had seen them in March in kind of like a pick up truck where the back was full of chicas being driven to jail. On this trip there was a chica who had caught my eye, she had an incredible body, dark skin and most importantly it was about 7 or 8pm. It was the night of the Mavs game and I remember I wanted to watch it at the bar while I watched the beautiful ladies passing by. I approached her and we spoke quickly, I was more interested in finding out how much and for how long before I went to do what I set out to do. We had kind of agreed on something and then I became a little distracted and after that I felt she was kind of uninterested as she was looking around more as other tourists passed by...I decided to take her to the room. I forget what we agreed on, didnt really matter though because when we got to the room we had a disagreement about our agreement (she was haitian, not that there is anything wrong with that but it was kind of difficult to communicate because she wasnt speaking spanish or english much) so I decided to bring her back to the strip. So I did, as we get to the strip she asks me to walk her to the bar because politur is out, I say sure.
As we are approaching Merengue Bar a politur comes and grabs my chica by the arm. He asks her if she has ID, my chica says she does...she reaches to her purse and suddenly the chick things she gonna outrun this guy in her 6 inch heels...needless to say she got 2 steps before he yanked her ass back. So at that point its over shes going in regardless of ID or not, he cuffs her on one hand and the next thing shes grabbing my arm saying shes with me whats the problem?? and i'm like she is with me whats the problem? and he starts to speak to me in spanish and he says this girl is bad news. Its not going to happen, just to back off and get another one. He then tells me to let go of the chica, I do and he cuffs her. Away they go...
So i'm there and i'm just blank about the whole thing when suddenly a flock of about 4 or 6 chicas come over to ask me what happened or that they say what happened. I go to the bar and I order a beer, have a seat. I sit next to one big titty chica who observed it and we start talking about it, i'm asking her why they took the chica if she was with me?? I didnt tell the politur she had done anything wrong to me and she was with me. She told me that the politur is taking girls regardless of whether they are with tourists or not. So i'm sitting there and the chica's friends (the one who got arrested) are calling me over and they are telling me to go get her PLEASEEEEEE that shes crying right now that if I want I can call her and hear it. After that for about 2 or 3 minutes I decide i'm up for this adventure, I luckily saw my motto guy outside the bar and I told him what happened and that I needed his help. I pointed out the officer who had by this time returned back to being in front of merengue bar. We spoke and he told me and motto that the girl was bad news, that the girl was on her way to boca chica tomorrow and that there was a high risk she could have came home with me and stolen from me and disappeared. That he knows her for a while now and to trust him on this one. He said "Forget about that chica, I will get you another chica myself. A prettier one that will be a much better match for you and cause you no problems" so at this point I look at my motto and he looks at me and says you know hes right. And i'm like yeah but I still want that other chica, so lets see what we can do. The politur tells us we can speak to the captain or the sgt, so we go to the station.
At the station we sat for a good couple hours, I saw chicas being brought in..I wont say pretty steady but the time that I was there I can say every 20 to 30 minutes chicas were bring brought in. I'll cut this story short since I want to write about some other things but in the end this chica paid me and my motto concho 1,000 pesos to get her out. My motto called a newspaper writer who spoke to the captain and then told me what he wanted me to tell the captain. I did that and I got the chica. In addition another tourist who I later met at new garden was there trying to get out a chica of his friend. His chica was actually an office working girl and she had her papers and all, dominicana I believe and she still got taken in is what they explained to me. My motto concho helped them get her out after I left with my chica.
It was quite the experience and weird to me on that end of it all.
II - Piero vs Palms Condos (Don's place)
Im not here to bash or favor either of the places, just share my experiences and observations as I only stayed in them once. I stayed at Piero's in March and Palms in June.
Positives and negatives about piero's
I like the location as opposed. Its kind of quiet yet its still on that main street. Its a long walk if your going to go into town but if you dont mind walking its very doable, at any time. I walked it at 2 and 3am without any problems. There are also lots of conchos on that street no matter the time so you could also go that route.
Staff. Piero is a cool guy. Spoke with Piero and someone else staying there who had just got in and was doing a short weekend trip. Willie is also a cool guy, I actually met up with Willie once or twice at the bar. He taught me something I will be using on my trips to classicos since i'm not really big on loud music and drinking (sorry guys I dont drink, not for me other than an ice cold presidente here and there). We sat at the bar near the steps that go up to classicos, he had told me it makes perfect sense because you have access to what goes into classicos and whats available on the outside. Good idea I think if you already went upstairs and you saw there wasn't much going on.
I also learned that if you keep your free drink ticket, you can come in and out of classicos as you please without having to pay again. Which was good to know.
The rooms, I saw 2 rooms while I was there. I only got a glimpse of the apartments but I was told by Mike Lodge they were in the same location. And sure enough he was right, both rooms I had were upstairs and they were studios, one was smaller than the other. And on the second floor I saw were the apartments, I believe there are 3 buildings all 3 or so stories high. Prices ranged from 35 to 50. 50 is for the apartments which I believe is a good price. The small room I was initially in I didnt really like, Im happy they messed up and put me in the wrong room by mistake and I was able to move to the bigger room. The small room made me feel kind of cramped. Plus this room had a terrace I could look down to the bar and pool from which was cool.
Palms Positives and Negatives
What I liked about the palms was the price and the space. for 300 I had a room for 9 nights, I had a kitchen stove and a large fridge which I didnt have at piero's and I had a sofa. I like the sofa because sometimes I dont want to watch TV from bed so that was good.
I had an incident or two though at Palms, one of them was resolved. The internet kept kind of fading in and out like we were disconnected. I say we because I met a neighbor who had the same issue, he was actually outside in the lobby when I was coming out to speak to someone to resolve the issue because I had someone who wanted to check something online. We ended up calling John (I believe is his name) and he came down and reset the connection for us. The incident that wasnt resolved was that my AC broke after the rain stopped on thursday and I spent the rest of the trip without AC but that was just about 2 or 3 days. I definitely under estimated the power of that cieling fan but it definitely works better when you can use them both, AC for a while then turn the ac off and you can chill with just the fan on.
Another problem I had was the location, i'm so used to walking but the distance at night is....unwalkable even for someone who loves walking around. Its not worth it specially when you can get a ride into town and be there so quickly. 50 pesos and often during the day you can get away with less. Only difference for me between piero and palms on the concho issue is the street, I feel I have the option of walking at pieros but I dont at palms when its night time. Also Piero's is pretty close to Passions and they are kind of trying to build there so you could stumble across a chica or two. I didnt get the sense that was going to happen at Palms though since the only thing close to it is other condos. I will say though that was a very comfortable environment and if you have your chicas already lined up Palms is a great place to stay because its just the right amount of space away from the action. If you need anything you have the option of going to the center or Passions or CMP and the stuff thats on that side, which i'm still not fully knowledgable of. I also like how place looks too, feels very natural.
Palms staff was all very helpful too. Me personally id stay at Palms again before I stay at Pieros because of the price and I feel i'm getting the same amount of space or more. Plus once you have figured out transportation, its a great low profile place to be. I like quiet and I like to sleep when im tired, I dont do ear plugs so its perfect in that respect for me. Both are great locations though for the guys who would like to leave the action at some point. Being at the center like at Don Antonios I remember I felt like whether I was at classicos or not I was there til it closed for the night because the whole block is just blasting music til so late. Then you gotta deal with the sun in your face at 6 to 7am.
III - The Rain
I got there on Friday the 3rd and it didnt stop raining until June 9th which was thursday. Almost a whole week of rain, and it actually rained on thursday just not as much as the other days. I dont know if it was that or the police but it seemed pretty dead on the main strip at times. Rumba always had a good share of ladies though. It felt weird this trip because I remember on my last trip at 7pm to 8pm the streets were starting to just heat up and on this trip I was there at about 7 to 8 and it seemed like things were very slow to heat up. I didnt get to go to Classicos this trip in June so I cant say what happened at about 10pm and onward chica wise or tourist wise but when I asked people they said there wasnt alot of tourists out and the rain was kind of putting a damper on things. Not sure the effect the politur had either or if it was a mix of all 3 of those things that created what I saw.
That said this doesnt mean there wasn't great chicas to be had. I had one of my best trips if not the best one in all my travels there. I met women id consider 10's and they were available and it was never anything ridiculous over 2,500 pesos. I paid 3,000 once and thats only because I wanted to to build a relationship that didnt involve negotiating or arguing about price even though she would have taken less. Just cruising around town you see chicas sprinkled around, there is the beach and other bars outside of the main street where you can stumble across some of the best chicas just keeping a low profile until nightfall.
IV - The exchange
I didnt know this til I saw it at the supermarket but they take dollars. They take dollars and give you a straight 35 to 1 conversion no matter what the dollar actually is...this tourist had a bill of 715 and paid with a 20 and said keep the change. Mind you the cashier is looking at him and telling him in spanish that he still owes her 15 pesos, and his buddy had to explain it to him. He then pulled out another dollar and paid.
I share that because it was weird to me. I also dont understand why you as a tourist are paying for anything in dollars in DR.
I have started visiting the same exchange place since March because I get a 37.60 exchange. This trip I went and I was getting 37.80 and then 37.90. I found this interesting because one day I got 37.90 and the rate was actually 37.50, not that it matters much but its good to know. I was going there til the end of my june trip when I found that in Charamicos there is a place that you can get a straight 38 rate for every dollar, you just need ID.
Food for thought for anyone who is new, if you get in real early for whatever reason and the places to exchange money are not open TRY TO AVOID the guys on the street or wait it out til the exchange places open because the street guys will give you a shit rate and they'll do it because they are the only ones open right now and your only option. I got a 35 to 1 conversion in March and that pissed me off but I needed a chica and food asap and I wasnt gonna wait around. To avoid that from ever happening again I am currently stocking up pesos for when I do visit I already have a couple pesos to pay with so I can avoid using dollars there, even with the taxi's. Reason why is because I dont think most dominicans can keep up with the conversion rates.
V - Connections
Try to make and keep contacts, especially good ones. I was out there and literally trying to get so many chicas numbers i felt like I was creating my own menu for whenever I had an appetite for a particular type of chica. There was a chica who I just simply called "WOW"on my cell because thats all I could think of her outfit when I saw her in classicos in March. I'll share that story when I get to the chica portion of this report but point here is I had her saved on my phone. When I came down in June I had sent out a text to the girls I had in March that I enjoyed, so I could see if they were in sosua. She was one who responded and she called me and was desperately writing to see me again. I had originally wanted to repeat with her but some other things came up and I ended up with other chicas instead so I told her I wouldnt be able to this trip, towards my last days.
One of the girls I had saved and sent the text to I later saw near Susanna's, which is where she lived when I saw her in March. Not sure if she was still living there or what but I spoke to her and she explained to me she had a new number, I jotted that down and was on my way. She gave me a call but the same thing happened as with the one above.
My most valueable connection I feel I got at the end of the trip. I had to go to STI for my return flight because I got a better deal for it but I still didnt know how i was going to get from POP to STI. I really considered Caribe Tour but people kept telling me things about the stops and stuff like that to the point I was just like "fuck it its sunday and I kinda just wanna relax and get there" so what I did was I took carrito even though I had to pay 1800 pesos instead of the 250 or 350 I would have paid to take the bus. I got the drivers info and I actually spoke to him about providing a car service for me while I was in town next time and he said he would for about 2000 to 3000 pesos. So im going to try that next trip because if I just use him for my airport pick ups with one being pop and one being sti, that alone is more than what hes charging me or just about that same amount.
Ive already told a friend I met on another board about it and i'm arranging for the guy to pick up my friend in Samana and bring him over to Sosua. My friend offered 80 dollars and i'm sure the driver is more than happy to accept that for the trip. I still havent tried it out so I dont know how well its going to work out but I think the airport pick ups alone make it worth while.
I met a chica who I paid pretty well and I now feel I have a connection to where if I go back in 3 months like I said I would, I should have a much MUCH better experience (and what I had was GREATTTTT). Im happy about that because shes someone I left in my room alone for periods of time as I had to run some errands and she never took anything from me. I never walked in on her in some awkward situation or anything, everytime I came in she seemed to be right at home doing whatever she was doing while she waited for me. Probably my most pleasant and easy going experience with a chica down there, one where I didnt want her to leave. Didnt regret anything about it.
I wish I had met my neighbor earlier during my stay because my trip would have been different towards the beginning.
I'm going to work on writing about the chicas in now but I have to figure out how to add pictures and I dont know if i'll be able to finish that tonight. Will add on tomorrow and hopefully have pics.
Originally Posted by lindin
though I dont know if I want to risk anything against your VIP status
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