Sosua Reports

[QUOTE=MrGogo;1938624]Hello Sir Charles,

Hope you are well, etc[/QUOTE]Hi Mr Gogo.

Thank you for your interesting post and enquiry as to my health (to which I would reply "pa pi mal", the standard Haitian response, and particularly appropriate in my case).

I assumed the OP was only interested in comparing Sosua and Puerto Plata. As he is a comparative newbie and I do not know how much Spanish he has (if any) I would not recommend SD to him, but if he wants to be brave and take the plunge, good luck to him.

As to comparing Pto Pta to SD (which was not what he was asking about) I do not think we disagree on the facts, just on our personal perceptions and requirements.

I loathe big cities and moved to the DR to get away from that life. I lived less than an hour from Central London most of my later life and very rarely visited it. If I did not want to visit London, I am hardly likely to want to spend time in a filthy, dysfunctional shithole like SD. If I do not enter a shopping mall or ride a subway for another twenty years, it will be too soon for me. As for sitting in a cinema with Dominicans, I have experienced that once. Never again.

Yes, Costambar is boring. I cannot imagine anyone why anyone would want to have a home there.

I have lived the past eight years in Pto Pta. It fills all my needs and I do not recognize it from your description. And I have never suffered the delusion that the locals are the slightest bit interested in my movements, but then I am not a legend like you. I have as little contact with locals as possible, but when I do both parties are polite, even friendly. I do keep a bit more "on my toes" in Sosua, maybe just because I do not know the local faces as well.

Yes, there are thirty times as many women in SD, but they are spread over an area thirty times greater and there are thirty times as many males as well. Anyway, how many women do we need a week? There have always been more than enough for me in Pto Pta.

Serious crime rates are much higher in SD than Pto Pta, even allowing for the greater population. The cops alone murder hundreds of people a year.

Here is a little to the killings in the DR and you will see that even though the south coast has as some here say, 30 times the people, 30 times the space, and 30 times more men that the north coast is holding its own with murders. So if you want a little hick country town that's dangerous and the ex pats sip the same hot beer all day, then maybe POP is your place. Oh! And don't forget that expensive ass airport.

[URL]http://www.dominicanwatchdog.org/dominican_news[/URL]

Anyone in the Sosua or Puerto Plata area can give me the exchange rates there now. Will be making a trip in two weeks.

[QUOTE=Revere;1940171]The story was weaved into another story so link was not possible and did not want people to get confused and was on a plane. Not to hard to fiigurre out. If you look at my past posts I always show links, but I know you know that already you just saw a chance to be a dick when you saw my mistake. But, whatever last thing I care about is what another man thinks of me and glad my life is better than getting uptight over translation issues.[/QUOTE]Hence the name "Dickhead".

[QUOTE=ExumaStealth;1940788]Anyone in the Sosua or Puerto Plata area can give me the exchange rates there now. Will be making a trip in two weeks.[/QUOTE]The exchange rates could be completely different two weeks from now. Just use a site like [URL]xe.com[/URL] to get an idea of what they are like on the ground.

[QUOTE=ExumaStealth;1940788]Anyone in the Sosua or Puerto Plata area can give me the exchange rates there now. Will be making a trip in two weeks.[/QUOTE]This is what a friend of mine said on the Sosua thread on TripAdvisor on September 21:

"As of yesterday the posted rate at Caribe tours in Sosua (in the Super Pola center) was 46 pesos to one dollar. "

And SavePros321 is right, the rate will be different by the time you get there. But it will likely be in the ballpark figure of 46 pesos per dollar.

[QUOTE=Frannie;1938692]To be fair, occasionally someone new comes in and writes a report that brings a new perspective to the board, but not often. It would be interesting to see a report from someone a ) who was wheelchair bound, or b) had never paid for sex before, or who had just got out of a long term marriage, or something like that.[/QUOTE]I believe this was also covered many a time:

A) Charles Pooter? (operative word being " bound ").

B) Mr. ENT? (actually the girls pay Him, so that's one better).

👻😜🖖

[QUOTE=SavePros321;1940908]The exchange rates could be completely different two weeks from now. Just use a site like [URL]xe.com[/URL] to get an idea of what they are like on the ground.[/QUOTE]Not all money changers give official rate. It helps to know official exchange rate by checking on [URL]xe.com[/URL] and ask the money changers for their rates. In Sosua it is usually displayed on the window.

[QUOTE=ExumaStealth;1940788]Anyone in the Sosua or Puerto Plata area can give me the exchange rates there now. Will be making a trip in two weeks.[/QUOTE]A street vendor and a store, near "Bon" ice cream close to New Whatever hotel, both quoted 45 pesos to a $, about an hour back. WU was closed so no idea what that is but in Santiago I got 46 pesos earlier in the week.

Dr1 dot com is a message board for expats and has a thread that documents recent exchange rates members have received in the Dr.

[QUOTE=Sammon;1940935]Not all money changers give official rate. It helps to know official exchange rate by checking on [URL]xe.com[/URL] and ask the money changers for their rates. In Sosua it is usually displayed on the window.[/QUOTE].

[QUOTE=Quagmire1974;1940917]This is what a friend of mine said on the Sosua thread on TripAdvisor on September 21:

"As of yesterday the posted rate at Caribe tours in Sosua (in the Super Pola center) was 46 pesos to one dollar. "

And SavePros321 is right, the rate will be different by the time you get there. But it will likely be in the ballpark figure of 46 pesos per dollar.[/QUOTE]A lot of people with think a difference of one peso between 45 and 46 is insignificant, and it looks that way, but that represents more than 2% and if you are spending hundreds or thousands of dollars it all adds up if you are paying an extra 2% or maybe even 5% or more for your vacation.

An exchange rate, like an interest rate, is a price. Nothing more and nothing less. When you shop for groceries and other items, do you make a lot of effort to save 2% at the grocery store? If not, it won't matter if you save 2% on the exchange rate.

[QUOTE=Dickhead;1941264]An exchange rate, like an interest rate, is a price. Nothing more and nothing less. When you shop for groceries and other items, do you make a lot of effort to save 2% at the grocery store? If not, it won't matter if you save 2% on the exchange rate.[/QUOTE]For some reason, people take exchange rates as a personal challenge in a way they would not with shop or restaurant prices.

Some guys spend 300 pesos on a taxi from El Batey to Charamicos and back to save 400 pesos and think they have somehow chalked up a big victory against the system. But they will over-tip by 500 pesos during the course of a night's drinking and think nothing of it, not to mention those who over-pay working girls by 1000 pesos and say "It's my money, I'll spend it how I want".

I remember when I was married, my wife and I took her mother on her first foreign holiday. Her main interest for 10 days was walking round different banks and cambios comparing exchange rates. People are odd.

I think there is a particular problem with Americans. The US is a vast country with hundreds of racial origins and every sort of terrain and climate type. Most Americans never need to travel abroad. They think of everything in dollars, even when they do. They regard foreign currencies with suspicion as some kind of commie conspiracy.

I had my eyes opened on my first trip to the DR which was the first time I talked to blue-collar Americans. One guy, who seemed otherwise quite intelligent and had a far more responsible and demanding job than me, complained that I had an unfair advantage as everything was half price for Brits. His reason? Brits got 60 pesos for a pound, whereas Americans only got 30 pesos for a dollar. And he was not joking.

Yes, Charles, it's true that many of us from the United States (I don't use the term "American" in reference to myself, for reasons that should be obvious but unfortunately aren't) are basically innumerate. And, we have a poor understanding of basic economics, which could lead to the disaster of Trump, since few of us can understand that the doctrine of comparative advantage has caused manufacturing jobs to disappear, not "unfavorable trade agreements. " Many of us are very culturally ignorant, know virtually no history, and are ethnocentric to a dangerous degree. We can't figure out simple things like the metric system or the Celsius scale, and we drive on the wrong side of the road.

However, we don't tend to descend [I]en masse[/I] from cheap Ryan Air flights to places like where I am now (Tallinn) and proceed to vomit in the streets. Only Brits seem to do that. I see this all over Europe. Maybe it's the fact that the beer is actually cold that does this? Or that it has more than 3% alcohol? Or that when asking for a "shandy" they get blank looks?

I've almost given up traveling with my fellow countrymen because they want me to translate the exchange rates, the metric system, the 24 hour clock (except for those who've been in the military), the fucking temperature, and all of that nonsense. Plus I usually end up driving because for some reason these rental car companies in other countries insist on sticking the gringo with the car with the manual transmission. They tend not to believe me when I tell them all the rental cars, indeed ALL the cars, period, have manual transmissions. Now, when someone says a place is 3 kilometers / kilometres away, and they ask me how far that is, I say "Three thousand meters" and walk away.

But I'm a dickhead.

[QUOTE=Dickhead;1941264]An exchange rate, like an interest rate, is a price. Nothing more and nothing less. When you shop for groceries and other items, do you make a lot of effort to save 2% at the grocery store? If not, it won't matter if you save 2% on the exchange rate.[/QUOTE]Well, would you park your spare cash in a savings account paying 2% interest versus one paying 0. 2% interest, all other things being equal? I would.

Yes, indeed, for example I will buy cheaper brands of foods if they are the same quality as more expensive brands, buy gasoline where it is a bit cheaper, and so on. This does not require any effort at all. I will get cash out of my own bank's ATMs or get cash back at Walmart to avoid ATM fees. I will buy prescription glasses online to spend less, I will buy things off Amazon if that is a bit cheaper than spending gasoline and my time to go to the store. I will turn the thermostat at home up or down before leaving for work. And so on. It is all small amounts of course, but over the years it adds up to hundreds and thousands of dollars that I can save or use for something else.

Spending $300 pesos to get the taxi to Charamicos to save on exchange is self defeating, but you could get the moto for much less, and if you were going to Charamicos anyway, for example to go to Alberto's pharmacy, which is cheaper than those in Sosua, then perhaps there would be no extra expense involved.

What you really have to watch out for though, is exchange rates that are nowhere near the correct rates of exchange, like inside the airport, where you will possibly pay 15 or 20 percent over the odds, or any exchange that you are offered in hotels, where you may end up paying a surcharge equivalent to a sales tax or more.