Cliff
Lee
Kurt
Scott
Alex
Antonio
Robert
Jeff
My Story (Our Story)
Jeff & Danny
I fell in love with the Dominican Republic on my first visit, October
1997, and decided very quickly that it would be a great place to live.
From then to now I have continued with this plan, and now I am very
close to achieving my objective. During my many early visits I had had a
number of unpleasant experiences with Dominican girls, which I shall not
go into, except to say that one of them lasted for over 6 years. My BIG
mistake had resulted in my meeting the wrong girls. What was my big
mistake? Without a doubt it was trying to find my ideal girl on my own,
and I was going to all the wrong places!
I split with my “over 6 year” bad experience in early 2006, and didn’t
return to the DR until June of that year. I had gone over to look for
some land to build a house, and decided before I left that I was going
to avoid the ladies (fingers still burning!). I stayed with my plan.
I returned to England from my June trip with a number of options on
land, and decided that another trip was needed quite soon. In late June
a friend of mine in England told me about this great website Latin
Affairs (latinasinlove) with hundreds of Dominican Girls seeking a
partner, so I started to look. Having paid a membership fee I spent
hours methodically going through looking at photographs, information,
location etc. of each girl and produced a list of my “finalists”. From
my list of finalists I ended up with just 3. So I purchased their
information. The first one I spoke to sounded just not my type, but she
was number 3. Now I had only two with very little to choose between them
except that one was a Gemini (like my “over 6 year” bad experience), and
the other a Scorpio. My English friend is well into horoscopes and told
me that, being Pisces, my ideal mate is a Scorpio (and I had never had a
Scorpio partner in my life!). So, what did I do? What you would not have
expected, I phoned the Gemini! Luckily for me, as you will discover when
you read the rest of my story, she had already found a boyfriend and was
not interested. So I phoned the Scorpio, Danny from Santiago. Her phone
was faulty and it took me a long time to get to speak to her for the
first time. This was around the second week in July. Finally, after
dialing her number about 100 times, I got to speak to her. Fortunately I
speak fairy good Spanish, so we were able to communicate. After that
first call I phoned her most days, she sounded absolutely delightful. I
promised to visit her very soon.
It must have been around 20th July that I booked for a 3 week trip,
flying out to Puerto Plata on 11th August. Mostly this was to meet
Danny, but also I had to continue with plans to purchase some land.
Danny was very happy to hear that we would soon meet. After another week
or so of talking to Danny on the phone I decided that I just couldn’t
wait until 11th August, and early in the day on 27th July I found a
cheap flight for 28th July, a one week return, so, in a mad moment I
bought the ticket and furiously packed a bag to leave the following day.
Luckily I had already bought an entry visa for the 11th August trip.
I had tried to phone Danny that evening, but her faulty phone stopped me
from getting through. I phoned my friend Sandy in Cabarete, who worked
for a car hire company and asked him to meet me at Puerto Plata airport
with a hire vehicle. Everything was ready. I had never been to Santiago
before, but I knew how to get there, and I had Danny’s address. Late on
27th I rushed out to the shops and bought some silk flowers for her, it
being illegal to take real ones. The following morning my friend took me
to Doncaster airport for my flight. The security was insane because of
the London terrorist attack, and the flight was delayed by 7 hours. I
spent all this time walking up and down in the airport thinking about
how I was going to find Danny in Santiago, the second biggest city in
the Dominican Republic. Eventually I boarded the plane, and spent the
following 9 hours making a plan to get to Santiago and find Danny, who
still didn’t know that I was about to arrive.
My friend Sandy met me at Puerto Plata with a white Suzuki Vitara, with
black tinted windows. I set off immediately for Santiago over the
mountain road. I arrived on the outskirts of Santiago, not knowing which
way to go, so I stopped and found a Motoconcho. After about half an hour
of aimlessly driving around behind the Motoconcho, he stopped and asked
a friend of his if he knew the way . Off we went again. This time my
Motoconcho seemed to know where he was going. Eventually he stopped, and
pointed down a side street and said “This is Calle 9”, so I paid him and
off he went.
I drove very slowly down Calle 9, wondering how I was going to find her
house because none of them had numbers. Everybody was looking at the
car, but couldn’t see who was driving because of the black windows. Then
I spotted Danny for the first time. She was sitting on a wall talking to
her friend. My pulse rate trebled in about 2 seconds. As I pulled up she
glanced round at the car, but couldn’t see me because of the tinted
windows. She continued talking to her friend. I picked up the flowers
and got out of the car. Danny was facing away from the car, but her
friend saw me. I came up behind Danny, put my arms gently around her and
said “Hola Danny, como estas”. Poor girl practically fell off the wall
with surprise. I will never forget that moment! After about an hour of
frantic conversation she arranged for her mother to look after her son
for a week, so we could go off and get to know each other better. She
packed a bag, and we set off for my favorite hotel in Rio San Juan. What
happened during our first week I will not go into in great detail,
except to say that she behaved like a real lady, and I like a true
gentleman. This pleased me a lot as most of the other Dominican girls
that I had met had come on too strong and too quick! Danny was
delightful and different to all my previous encounters in The Dominican
Republic.
During this trip I discovered a piece of land for sale next to my
friend’s house, near to Rio San Juan, and decided to buy it. I also
bought a new mobile phone, my plan being to leave it with Danny on my
return to England as her faulty phone had caused me more than enough
anguish. The week went by far too quickly, and we soon found ourselves
back at Puerto Plata airport, saying goodbye. I felt a strange sensation
of happiness to have met Danny, and sadness to be leaving her to return
to England, even though my next trip was only a week away (11th August).
That one week in England was one of the longest in my life, even though
I hardly seemed to have time to wash my clothes and repack my bag. So,
back to the Dominican Republic on August 11th, and this time Danny met
me at the airport, along with Sandy with another hire car. We returned
to my favorite hotel for a few days and then drove to Danny’s home in
Santiago to collect her son Carlos (one and a half years old). After one
night in Santiago the three of us set off for Gaspar Hernandez where
another friend of mine rents a Cabana right on the beach. We had a great
time just living together like a family, spending time on the beach,
doing all our own cooking and getting to know each other more. It
quickly became obvious that we were extremely compatible.
Once again the holiday passed all too quickly. But it was a wonderful
calm holiday, the only frustrating bit was to do with the land deal
which was not progressing quickly enough for me. All to quickly we were
back at Puerto Plata (1st September) and saying goodbye again, but
worse, this time there was no next visit arranged, so saying goodbye was
much more difficult. My one comfort was that I knew that I would have to
return soon to finalize the land deal. I arrived back in England feeling
very sad. After a week or so in England it became obvious that I would
need to return soon to sign contracts on the land, so I managed to find
another return flight on 27th September, this time for only 1 week.
During my lonely time in England Danny and I spoke daily on the phone.
Eventually came the next trip, and the same routine, Danny met me at the
airport, and Sandy once again with the hire car. Directly to Santiago to
collect Carlos, and back to Gaspar Hernandez and my friend's cabana on
the beach, this time for only one week. In our last few days together we
openly discussed our compatibility and the possibility of marriage was
mentioned, but no firm plans were made at this stage. Apart from
spending more time with Danny and Carlos I was pleased to finalize the
land deal, and returned to England on 4th October, a little happier than
I had done when I had left Danny on the previous occasions.
With no firm plans for another visit I felt very lonely for the next two
weeks or so, I was finding it more and more difficult to live without
her. Then, in a very rash moment I booked another flight for 24th
October, for a two week stay. During this holiday I was determined to
set some concrete plans for the future. During the first couple of days
back at my friend’s cabana we discussed marriage at length. I explained
to Danny that I was going to try very hard to speed up my plans to live
in the Dominican Republic, and we discussed this in great detail. It
became clear to me that she wanted a permanent relationship, and not an
“Internet” or “Holiday” partner. This was also how I was feeling. I
phoned my friend in England whose house is next door to the land that I
had purchased. My plan was to return in December for a much longer stay.
My friend has a business in England and has very little opportunity to
visit his Dominican Property. His house is very large, but is not
completely finished, and he was having problems getting work done from
5000 miles away. I suggested to him that it could be a benefit to him if
I lived there for a while and he agreed. Along with a plan for me to
spend much more time in the Dominican Republic with Danny and Carlos,
and concrete plans for the future, we both decided to get married sooner
rather than later, and during this visit we spent much time in Santiago
looking for a venue, wedding dress, cake, invitations, photographer etc.
We found a nice venue and set the date, 29th December. Also we
celebrated Danny’s birthday on 31st October. I returned to England on
7th November, leaving Danny to continue with the wedding arrangements,
telling her that I would return in early December for a stay of up to
six months. This only allowed me 4 weeks or so in England, and I would
have a lot to do in order to leave my UK home for such an extended
period. However, I had every determination to get everything done in
time.
I arrived back in the Dominican Republic on 6th December on a two week
return ticket (from England return charter flight tickets can be cheaper
than one way scheduled flights). As usual Danny, Sandy and hire car were
waiting for me at Puerto Plata airport. Our first job was to have a beer
and a chat and tear up my return ticket. This time I WAS STAYING. We
spent a little time in Santiago, and then dashed back to Rio San Juan to
buy beds and other stuff that we would need in order to live in my
friend’s house. My friend at Gaspar Hernandez lent me his pick-up
enabling us to transport a new fridge from Santiago. We had a lot to do
in order to live in my friend’s house, plus the wedding and Christmas
all coming up very soon. We finally moved into the house on 16th
December, and now only had 13 days until the wedding. Danny’s family
were very supportive and helpful. All the plans for the wedding went
well, except the official documents, which turned out to be a nightmare.
Countless trips to Santiago, and somehow we always seemed to arrive with
something missing. Things seem to happen in the Dominican Republic more
like the result of a fortunate accident, rather than the result of
careful planning and organization. This might sound like a complaint or
a criticism, it isn’t, just simply a fact of life in this country. Like
any country in the world, it has its good points and its bad points.
Well, we got it all done. The wedding was most enjoyable, although a
little frantic. Christmas passed and we settled into my friend’s house.
Once the new year celebrations had passed we started to get some more
major planning done. The following months were taken up by doing some
improvements to my friend’s house, drawing plans for our house next
door, and chasing visas for Danny and Carlos to visit England. Visas
were finally acquired on 1st May. We all left together for England on
16th May, where we are now living together while I finalize my affairs
in England. Later this year we will be returning to The Dominican
Republic to start building the house. Also we plan to start a business
in The Dominican Republic.
And that’s my story so far. Danny is a lovely girl, I have been very
lucky to find her and without Latin Affairs it would never have
happened. So a big thank-you to them.
Lastly I hope any of you reading this end up as lucky as I have been.
Regards
Jeff, (Danny & Carlos)
Cliff
Lee
Kurt
Scott
Alex
Antonio
Robert
Jeff
