Puerto Plata

From World travel guide

Puerto Plata is a city in the Dominican Republic

1 Understand
2 Get in
3 Get around
4 See
5 Do
6 Buy
7 Eat
8 Drink
9 Sleep
10 Get out
11 External links

Understand

If you go to Puerto Plata as a tourist, you really should read the followings. As the hotels are away from Puerto Plata city you'll have to take a taxi (the most expensive and not really more secure than other choices) or the buses (cheap and slower, it is the easiest way to move around, just a bit complicated to understand the paths) or the funniest, the GWA-GWA. These are simple minivan for normally 7-8 persons that can be easily packed to 22 persons and 2 roosters! GWA-GWA are the main common transportation system but not really organised, you can stop practically anywhere along the main streets and wait for one to stop and climb up, the fair is normally cheap, but you'll probably have to negotiate with the driver or the door operator, as long as you know that Dominican love to negotiate, in fact, they always negotiate for everything. Puerto Plata itself is great to meet Dominican people and to shop in local commerce. If you are looking for tourist stuff (paints, rum, cigars, t-shirts, etc.) the best place to go is Sosua, its about 10-15 minutes from Puerto Plata. The beach is beautiful in Sosua but, you'll have to rent a longchair if you really want to appreciate it, because if you don't, the Dominican will ask you all day long if you want to rent them a chair. The only advantage to be extremely patient and tolerant is that their prices drop down with the time! But as everything else, chair rents are also negotiable.

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