La Romana Shopping Spree

Beware - There are no local artisan shops included in the tour. You do go to a market where souvenirs made in China are sold and a few paintings in the back area. It was worthy to note that you had a sticker added to your jacket when you got off the bus. We thought this was so that the tour company would get a % of sales. We bought - nothing. The cigar demonstration was fine - two women demonstrated how the inner cigar is rolled and then later the outer layer applied. It was a shopping opportunity for cigar smokers. The adjacent chocolate shop was just a chance to buy locally made chocolate. While it looked like chocolates were made in the shop, not on the morning we were there. There was a little river ride with not much to see on either side of the river. It went a couple of kilometres in one direction then turned around and returned to the starting point. Still, it was nice to get away from the resort for a couple of hours and see some of the countryside. The trip to Casa de Campo and the amphitheatre would have been more interesting if the guide had taken any time to explain the significance of the location and of the school. He was glib and to entertain himself spent time humming and singing and occasionally shouting out a word or two. Yes, he could talk in English, Spanish, French and German but what he told us was so little that it seemed we could have had a sheet of paper with the information. We did look up the site on Google when we got back and found out all kinds of interesting things he could have told us. Finally, the trip to the Jumbo in La Romana was interesting but it looked like a Target store or any place you buy household goods and food. Other than lunch, most of the people bought nothing here. It was a disappointing "spree". Two cigars and a bag of cocoa.