"Anything Goes" thread

I was on the road yesterday between Luperón and Imbert and there was an entire herd of cows in the road with three cowboys on horses. They were moving along at a pretty good clip and traffic managed to work around them.

Some days this place is so fun.

@wondering9

At least this herd was guided. I have seen cows coming out of the bush, roaming around houses and ending with a casual parade on the busy street. I usually grab a chair and watch the show evolve.

Sadly so many accidents are caused by animals wandering loose!  Now owners can be held liable for the damages

I was recently  up in the mountains and a herd of cows came down the road 25  - 30 so I pulled over,

and as they got close to my truck two of them started to fight butting heads back and forth , low and be hold they banged into the truck , twice, just enough to rock the truck. It’s an old truck I bought from a farmer five years back, and no noticeable damage was done , but those cows were huge and strong … then the cowpoke guy came by with a little stick yelling something in Spanish…..Lol yer wouldn’t think it was 2025

I was recently up in the mountains and a herd of cows came down the road 25 - 30 so I pulled over,
and as they got close to my truck two of them started to fight butting heads back and forth , low and be hold they banged into the truck , twice, just enough to rock the truck. It’s an old truck I bought from a farmer five years back, and no noticeable damage was done , but those cows were huge and strong … then the cowpoke guy came by with a little stick yelling something in Spanish…..Lol yer wouldn’t think it was 2025 - @Tippj

Cows are timeless   😄

I have a question about oranges. In the larger stores like Jumbo, you can find oranges that look like oranges look in the States which are often labeled as imported. In the ever-delightful Samaná, which does not have any of those stores but has various smaller produce-buying options, I've seen fruits that are the right size and shape but more green, and I've heard them called oranges (naranja or china, not limón). I don't think they are limes, because I've seen a pile of them right next to a pile of lime-looking fruits that were much smaller. But when I tried one it was sour like a lime or lemon.

Did I just get an unripe orange, or is this something else?

And, out of idle curiosity, do they just not grow oranges in the DR? and if not, I wonder why not?

I have a question about oranges. In the larger stores like Jumbo, you can find oranges that look like oranges look in the States which are often labeled as imported. In the ever-delightful Samaná, which does not have any of those stores but has various smaller produce-buying options, I've seen fruits that are the right size and shape but more green, and I've heard them called oranges (naranja or china, not limón). I don't think they are limes, because I've seen a pile of them right next to a pile of lime-looking fruits that were much smaller. But when I tried one it was sour like a lime or lemon.
Did I just get an unripe orange, or is this something else?

And, out of idle curiosity, do they just not grow oranges in the DR? and if not, I wonder why not? - @wondering9

Great question! 

Anyone?  Bueller? 

@ExpatRusher

They're oranges. We have them in Vietnam too. They are fully ripened.

I think that must be something different. The one I got was more mottled green/yellow on the outside, light yellow on the inside, and it tasted very sour.

I think they're called Sour Oranges, used for marinating and sauces.  Made the mistake of buying them when on a vacation here one time and no amount of sugar would make them edible as a fresh fruit. But they're great for marinating meat.

UncleBuck is right they are for cooking/ marinating and some use them for juice and add a lot of sugar. They are not an orange to peel and eat.

Naranja agria are the sour oranges and regular one simply Naranja. You can tell difference by texture rough skin sour smoother skin sweet or regular

Yeah, you could definitely tell that they were different.

I wonder if regular oranges are this hard to find outside of the larger markets or if I've just been having short-term bad luck. This /seems/ like it would be a good climate to grow oranges in ...?

Yay, I'm legal! -- got my cédula on Thursday. That was an enriching experience which I'm glad to have behind me 😏. Now I can get going on making longer-term living arrangements. I've narrowed down my choice to Samaná or Rio San Juan. I like both but I'm finding that you really need to walk through every assumption and make sure it works the way you think it will. My priority is being able to do nature tourism as an independent traveler on a budget. For that, you definitely have to walk it through rather than trusting what you see on the interwebs. (Other priority is being able to find fresh fruit and veggies! not so simple outside the big cities, apparently!)

Next task for me is to get my (US) passport renewed, which right now might require as much of a "go with the flow" attitude as you'd need for Dominican paperwork (or might be paused completely until the shutdown is over, but so far I haven't gotten a definitive "no").

The other thing I'm thinking about is trying to find a volunteer gig, in order to get some kind of local connection. I confess I have come to feel pretty cynical and disillusioned about the nonprofit world -- and that was in the US where I was at least fairly fluent in the BS-ology, unlike here where I'm lucky if I even get the surface meaning! -- but I hope I can eventually find /something/, however limited. One thought was getting proper English teacher training. I'm not SUPER psyched about that, but at least it's a skill and something people might be able to use to get a better paying job? Other suggestions welcome.

For now it's back to playing tourist until I can pick a place to try to settle down. Gee, tough life!

Thanks for listening.

Passport renewal is relatively easy! I think priority is given to those outside the country. I submitted mine through the embassy the same week that a friend submitted hers in the US. Mine came back almost a month sooner. Mine was about 5 weeks from drop off at Domex to delivery. Dave renewed his last year and it was a bit faster, primarily because Domex opened a branch in Las Terrenas by the time he renewed his.

I just had the most excellent adventure mostly by mistake. I have been trying to figure out how to take the guagua from Samaná city to the famously beautiful El Valle beach, and it finally worked. On the way in they dropped me at the beach but told me that I'd have to catch the return bus at Don Pirón restaurant (which, heads up in case anybody tries this, is a bit of a walk from the beach, I would definitely ask when and where the return trip is).

So the return bus was 5 minutes early and I thought "hmm that's odd" but I jumped on. And OMG it went off into what seemed like jungle, and the road got rougher and rougher, and I thought "why would a public bus even go back here?" and we forded two rivers (which might have been shallower than some of the puddles we bounced through), and then all of a sudden there started to be houses again and turned out there was a whole community back up in there ...Somebody gave me a cup of cocoa and then sold me a slab of local chocolate. Somebody else swapped stories about where we'd lived in Louisiana. By the time the guagua got back to Don Pirón, 45 minutes later, it was packed full of people. One of the passengers stood on the running board outside the truck the whole way back into town. And then the driver I'm pretty sure went 2-3 blocks out of his way to drop me at a more convenient spot even though I said the mercado was fine.

Honestly it was the most fun I've had since I've been here. That is the wildest and most rural guagua route I've been on so far. It only goes three times a day (unlike most of the others which seem to go every few minutes). I would definitely have a Plan B for what to do with your day if the outgoing bus doesn't show at the mercado, and enough cash to take a taxi if you miss the connection coming back ($55, I think). But, SUPER fun. I'm still bouncing off the walls a bit. Thanks for listening!

@wondering9 I really enjoyed reading your story. Thank you for sharing!

@wondering9

Thats AWESOME!!!!!

[[US]] Passport renewal is relatively easy! - @ddmcghee

Back to ^^this for a minute. I am sure Denise is right in general. FWIW, I had quite a bit of trouble getting live-human answers to questions not already answered on the website. I tried both "US Citizen Services" (which the embassy directs you to for passport questions) email and phone, and the direct embassy phone. It could just be worse right now during the shutdown, or just random bad luck, who knows.

What worked for me in the end was calling the phone number with the US area code rather than the one with the DR area code. Then it was a quick call with clear and professional answers.

In case someone else runs into the same snag, ^^might be worth a try.

And in case someone else is working on this right now (Nov/12/2025), they say yes they are processing applications during the shutdown.

@wondering9

I would assume passports are an essential service!

@wondering9

I didn't even try calling anyone. I was able to find answers to all my questions on the website. I tried helping an elderly friend reach the embassy a while back, and it was a real pain!

I just got mine back (December 2025); the whole process took just under 4 weeks.

i think my sense of humor just ran dry. I was finally about to set up online banking for my account (very tl;dr why that didn't happen sooner). During that process, the banker asked to check my email @ddress; I handed her a business card so she could read it easily. After checking, she sent two emails that never arrived, insisted it must be something wrong with my phone, and was about to give up. Finally I got her to show me her computer screen and sure enough, they had the wrong @ddress. Even after I pointed it out to her, she couldn't see it. ("But it has a 'd' in it." "Yes, but your version has two d's and the second one is wrong." "Oh.") Not reassuring in an institution where you'd like to think the staff was detail-oriented. We did get the thing set up once she had the right email.

I'm 99% sure those stray email messages only contained one-time passcodes that expired minutes later, so presumably no harm done. Due to a linguistical short-circuit in my brain plus general cowardice, I didn't ask her to verify that, which I kicked myself for later. This is actually the second time since I got to the DR that banking info has gone astray because of someone else's email error.

It didn't help that my home bank has been a bit dysfunctional lately too or that today's bank visit was sandwiched in between two 1.5-hour guagua rides (don't ask), a brief rainstorm, a minor injury that required attention while bouncing in the back of a truck, and 10,000 motor scooters😮.

OK, I know it was really just one of those things that happens, but this time it got to me. Thanks for listening to me vent! On the plus side, it was a very scenic ride, with horses and a few of those eternal cows to keep it entertaining.

And meanwhile, very happy holidays to all.

We could compile books and books of these stories!  The lack of attention to detail  is astounding to me.

And this is definitely the right place to vent!

I was taking a walk this morning and thinking about just how enchantingly weird some  neighborhoods are -- with the steep up-and-down streets that in turn have steep drop-offs to the side, and the side alleys and crooked staircases and precipitous driveways and near-vertical gardens and romantic ancient ruins oh wait no that's construction sites that got stalled out and overgrown by vines... and goats and chickens... just when you're all annoyed and sweaty and stressed out, the magic kicks in. good fun and a definite change of scenery from anything I'm used to!

oh yes!!!  the sweet and the smelly, the loud and the quiet, the totally organized and the absolute chaos and  THE FREEDOM to find my PERSONAL place of PARADISE and Enjoy IT ! (in CABARETE) every cold Canadian winter! BEST REGARDS: