I’ve posted this before, but it’s worth repeating. Dom rep. Birthday trip.
Got to the airport to be told the flight is delayed by a couple of hours, then a couple more, then a couple more. We were told the problem was they couldn’t open the hold doors to remove the previous passengers luggage. Eventually it got close to the point where they would have to put us in a hotel, so they said they had got permission to fly with the luggage still on board. Great. We boarded, got settled, then the captain announced the hold door had opened, so now they had to unload it. Another delay, crammed on the plane exhausted after sitting in an airport for about 16 hours. Just what we needed.
Finally set off and arrived at the hotel, which seemed nice enough, and settled down by the pool. Within minutes, it clouded over and the heavens opened. No problem, we’re all inclusive, let’s hit the bar, with all the rest of the hotels guests, who proceeded to get increasingly drunk, loud, and lairey. All entertainment was cancelled due to the weather, including the indoor show. But no matter, they put some music on. The lyrics of which included, if “you’re scared mother fucker go to church”. These lyrics were repeated with gusto, by all the guests, eventually including the children. Due to the guests singing lustily along, the reps obviously thought it was popular song and so repeated it, frequently.
Got up the next day, still raining. So we repeated the day before. Next day, still raining, repeat the day before. Next day. Still raining.,, you get the idea. We tried to book a trip to break the endless cycle of get up, sit in the bar, go to bed, but they were all cancelled.
This went on for five days. Then the morning of my birthday arrived. It rained, so we sat in the bar all day! Again. Singing the MF song. By teatime we were more than a touch inebriated, so decided to go to the room for a nap. Got up and the whole world seemed to shake. Decided we definitely needed a nap and went to the room, and put on the telly. News reports of a massive earthquake in Haiti, and tsunami warnings for the dom rep. We were in a ground floor beachfront apartment! So we went to reception to ask what to do, blank looks all round. Decided along with most other guests (and don’t forget, we’d all been drinking pretty solidly for a week, to get to higher ground. Fortunately there was a large hill right beside the hotel so we all trooped up there, in the pouring rain, ankle deep in mud, where we all stood around like lemons for about an hour before squelching back to the bar!
Get up the next day to hear that most of the staff had family in Haiti and were understandably devastated and worried sick, so the atmosphere was terrible. The sun actually came out the day after the quake, and stayed for the rest of the week, but no one was in the holiday mood after seeing the terrible things that were happening just a short distance away.
Was delighted to leave, and get on the plane to go home. Waiting to take off a baby was screaming non stop. The pilot announced we were waiting for medics to check the poor little chap was ok to fly. So delayed again. The medics got on, and said he was good to go, but he continued screaming. We set off and took off, but a chap behind the baby had been very vocal about it annoying him. As soon as we took off he started yelling “shut that fucking brat up or I’ll do it for you” or words to that general effect. Needless to say the babies father did not take kindly to this, it all kicked off, and we ended up turning the plane round so arsehole bloke could be removed.
Never been so glad to get home in my life.
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