A Cultural Experience in The Dominican Republic...Part 4 of 4

 This will be my last post on the Dominican Republic (unless I think of something else to share).  We saw a couple interesting forms of transportation there.  Notice the taxi in the picture above...with three people on it!  I also saw a man riding a horse down the street with three big bags of what appeared to be coconuts in them.  It was a beautiful sight, like something out of the movies.  Sadly, I was on the wrong side of the bus and couldn't get a picture. 

 Isn't this a cool fence? 

 I loved how festive all the buildings were.

 There were loads of "taxis" everywhere.  I was shocked by the number of motorcycles on the roads and virtually no one wore helmets.

 Another thing I found interesting was that you would see big open spaces like this and then you would see someone walking across the middle of it talking on their cell phone.

 I went on a shopping excursion with a group of people who went on the trip with us.  We had three different shopping experiences.  The first stop was kind of like a strip mall, but the owners sat outside their shops and asked you to come in and you had to negotiate the prices.  The above photo was our second stop and my favorite.  It was on the beach.  Almost all of these shops were run by handsome young men.  They were more like stalls than shops and everything was negotiable....very negotiable.  The third shopping experience was a lot like a mall here, without the food court.  It was fun experience!

 Faceless pottery dolls are made in the Dominican there were all kinds of them.  I bought this one because I liked the red hair and that you could tell it was handmade.

 This is probably my favorite purchase.  I was told by one of those handsome young men in the beach shopping market that when you have a baby in the Dominican you hang a painting with these symbols over its bed to bring it good luck throughout its life.  A cool thing about the painting is if you look at the back, the artist used reclaimed wood to make the frame and used regular cotton as the canvas.  I absolutely love this and every submission I make from now on will be rubbed on my good luck painting!

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 Then we tried something new.  We went on a snorkeling cruise. And OMGoodness it was fun fun fun!

 Then we swam to this penned in area and swam with nurse sharks and sting rays!  They were too quick for pictures though.  My hubby even dove down to the bottom to photograph a shark, but when I developed it, he had taken a photo of the sea floor and no shark.

Then we were allowed to hold a sting ray if we wanted to...Guess who's hand went up?  His face was lovely and he felt soft like thick wet craft foam.  This experience was way out of my comfort zone, but I was so excited by the snorkeling that I felt like I could do anything...The lesson here is once you try something new and exciting it leads to you wanting to do more new and exciting things.

I hope you have enjoyed my posts about our trip to The Dominican Republic.  It was an amazing experience! 

When have you pushed your limits and done something that made all the cells in your body come to life?

Thanks for stopping in and have a wonderful weekend...