Dominican Republic Semana Santa. WARNING! This is Crazy 2024 Easter in Cabarete Puerto Plata
Welcome to our first ever Semana Santa here in the Dominican Republic this is going to be an interesting video it is people have literally been warning us about this weekend starting like 2.5 years ago when we first arrived here we've been getting so many warnings about it people telling us we should probably leave for it but we've never experienced it before so this is going to be interesting for those of you that don't know s Santa literally translates to Holy Week it's definitely the most important holiday here in all of the year that's including Christmas here in the Dominican Republic it's very very exciting we hear that people flock from the cities to the beaches that they get super crowded there's crazy parties but right now it's actually the one holiday over the course of the weekend which is Good Friday supposedly there's no drinking and no music but I definitely see a lot of people so we're actually filming this over the course of 2 days and uh yeah this is 2 days before videos come out on a Sunday so hopefully we can get the edit done in time the edit might be a bit different but right away you can see in the background here there's a lot of security around there is this is something that's not overly usual here on this beach like you do see police every day but there's usually just a couple of them now they have like a lot of police officers there's military we saw a helicopter earlier that was literally scoping the beach back and forth and then there's all these people in these uh orange vests and I think they might be lifeguards this is a lot different so far again I think this is really tame for what we're going to see tomorrow but it's so interesting this is not what the beach is normally like and I'm excited to see what tomorrow is going to be like cuz it's really what people have warned us about like today is the more chill laidback restrictive day whereas tomorrow is supposed to be like go go go parties I don't know we'll see you guys will know before we do because uh right now we're filming a day before but you're just about to watch it right now also for those of you that follow along from week to week you might be a little bit confused as to how we're possibly in cabarete right now what we basically did is we traveled as you know to a few different Islands then we went to Santo Domingo and to panas and those videos are not out yet but they're already filmed and we figured since we were back in cabarete for Easter weekend we have to film so you guys can see there's lots of people in loungers I mean it's really not that crazy yet there's more people than usual though definitely more people than usual you guys might think this looks relatively normal cabarete never usually gets like super crazy even though it is one of the more popular beach towns here in Dominican Republic but today I mean this is really an example of how busy it can get but I do think tomorrow it's going to be even greater here one thing we can't quite figure out is why Easter is such a big party weekend here in the Dominican Republic I don't think we've been to another country where this happens and we've been to a lot lots of countries in South America as well but we're not quite sure are we yeah cuz at Christmas here is pretty lowkey um it seems like Christmas Eve is kind of the bigger holiday or the bigger celebration for a lot of people and then Christmas day kind of just feels like normal around here whereas this weekend is apparently where everybody's off everybody comes to the beach and the other something that I can't really figure out because I know the Dominican Republic is a very very religious country is that do people are people going to church and are they like doing religious things this weekend or is it just one big party and maybe some Dominicans can actually comment like we yeah exactly we love if someone would comment and let us know because we don't know if people like go to church today or is it Sunday from what all the locals tell us is like as of midnight tonight it turns into like crazy town and I think tomorrow's going to be busy so it's interesting to see and I feel there's all this anticipation coming for tomorrow we did mention the helicopter a little bit earlier we saw it earlier in the day and then not didn't really hear it for the last couple of hours but definitely back I don't know if they're monitoring the water making sure like water safety and all that stuff no one's drowning but it's really close it's actually a military Chopper I think I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure like everybody is out this weekend including the police including the military all right you'll be able to see some of the uh military presence around this this is totally different because we never see this while we're here huh no and what's even weirder is this is one of our favorite bars and I'm not even serving alcohol today because it's a B I know it's mojito bar and what Rowdy how are you come you want to be in the video there's no alcohol today right no alcohol today no tomorrow though huh yeah you can get tomorrow tomorrow okay so everyone's today is today you can get juice or Coke or something like that do you get a lot of do you get a lot of tourists asking for alcohol and then they don't know no no no the tourist want alcohol to this is Rowdy he works at our favorite bar he might be our favorite guy here he's awesome say hi to Rowdy if you're ever here right now we're just walking by uh Oho and this is usually the absolute loudest place on the beach and it's silent it's weird that there's no music it's totally weirding me out yeah we're pretty sure this is the place at night like at midnight tonight is where the party will be at it looks like everybody's sitting around and wondering where the alcohol is but uh wow this is fascinating so far it's such a different perspective on cabarete one of the rumors that we've heard is that because there's an alcohol ban from I think it's in the morning until midnight that at midnight everything just goes crazy we're really not nightlife people so you're not I'm sorry you're not going to get to see that tonight if you were looking forward to like what happens at midnight you're going to have to use your imagination we also heard that at other years they set up big stages but we heard a rumor that the government banned it like a Bann big St they're trying to trying to keep it safer this year bit of safety I guess I'm not quite sure all right we're coming by boy boy you'll see more uh of the uh military here this is never like this the beach is totally different no music on a boy boy either know it's so weird I feel like everyone can hear what I'm saying which is also really odd and I have I haven't had any drinks today either so I'm definitely not feeling like super loose and uh going at the moment by the way if you got this far in the video you're probably wondering like who the heck are we it's Trevor and Anna it's delightful travels just in case you're wondering we figured this video might be getting in front of more people than usual though we're not sure we thought we'd introduce ourselves we are from Canada but we live right here in cabarete in the Dr and we've been all over the country up in constanza over to Los tanas you name it so make sure to hit subscribe cuz there's lots more videos from the Dr coming up so along our walk we've actually stopped at a few of the restaurants uh like at mojito bar they are not serving alcohol but a couple of them are discreetly doing it apparently they're serving it in plastic cups they don't have any like specials going on as most of you guys know if you've been here before they do have a lot of happy hours here and I guess that's not really happening today because I guess you know then they'd be obviously breaking the law but they're kind of doing it discreetly I will not name the places that are because I don't want anyone to get in trouble but if you're coming here in future years and you're wondering like can I actually get any alcohol at some of the restaurants here chances are you can well we've come across what is one of the new additions here on the beach it's the uh official volleyball court huh yeah I've never seen this before often they just have like makeshift you know people put up a volleyball net and they play but this is like an official competition watch out well we almost got hit by the ball there I have to be really careful with sorry I can't talk in the camera and watch the ball and make sure I don't get hit at the same time but this is really cool something that does not happen here all the time I've actually never seen this there's some sort of volleyball competition happening this weekend today's been interesting for sure it's cool to see all these people on the beach we never see this amount of people but it's also really weird to have it oh so quiet and for those of you that don't know Dominican Republic is not known for being a quiet Place usually especially on Sunday is like a beach day so it's not Sunday but that's the day that all the Dominicans come to the beach and it's usually pretty loud people bring speakers that's that's the biggest shock to us so far is the the noise level like we hear the ocean of course no background noise we're pretty used to hearing some really loud speakers in all the restaurants having the music on especially on the long weekend so let's see we're going to call it here for today and let's see what happens tomorrow all right it's now uh the next day and we're in the town so far what we noticed is there's lots of traffic and it's a little louder as you could probably tell there's also a police presents so lots of that going on but uh I don't know if it's going to get louder as we go on yeah so yesterday we were obviously just on the beach we can really make our way over to town yesterday so I don't know what the comparison would be but it's definitely busy right now I think we just said it's the next day so it's Saturday which people told us is 100% the busiest day of the entire weekend so this is going to be the lit Des it is also remember yesterday we said no music today there's music the music's back yeah it's a little bit ladder today we'll make our way to the beach eventually to see what it's like compared to yesterday I have a feeling it's going to be a little bit busier and probably a little bit Lou I'm just going to leave I'm going to leave the camera on so you guys can hear wow it's pretty busy look at all the traffic to give you an idea of what's Happening lots and lots of things it's pretty loud huh can you even hear me now this is more like the D normally yeah this is what I expected we also noticed so far that there's uh not as many tourists out I think tourists are pretty used to uh I guess hibernating or staying in when this goes on there's lots of locals which makes it so fun yeah and a lot of exps have told us those people that we said warned us for ages and ages about how crazy this get they said they usually just buy groceries they hunker down for the weekend and don't really go out but come on you have to come and see what it's like yeah you have to come and see this I mean right now it's worth it for the the traffic alone but if I go this way look there's actually not a lot of like foot traffic right in town here so that's interesting to see this is uh one of the new editions here it's like a popup Empanada stand so yeah brand new let's see what we got over here got the music on is it queso okay um we've actually been on a hunt for an empanada stand so it's nice to have this pop up here sorry it's really really loud I going to guess that's going to be the theme of this part of the this uh this particular video or the end of the video is going to be I think a little bit louder we'll see when we get down to the beach but speaking of empanadas we've actually been looking for an empanada stand a lot of them Clos in the morning it's kind of considered sometimes more of a breakfast food which I find rather funny so they close by noon or so so we generally don't get that many padas here this one I will tell you is very very hot we got a cheese cheese what's this there's red stuff there on it interesting I don't know we'll find out what that mystery stuff is but let's break it apart oh that's looking nice and gooey is it good that's some cheesy goodness it's definitely not nothing overly complex but it's just if you want a little bit of a flaky crust and some ooey gooey hot cheese it's absolutely delicious I would love if there was like some sort of sauce to dip it in but this is just street food it's pretty basic it's pretty simple um it was 75 peso so about a dollar and a half something yeah something like a dollar yeah dollar and a half Canadian that's not too bad all right we're going to make our way uh down to the beach to see if anything is different down here definitely uh a lot of people huh this is probably the most people I've ever seen in beach chairs for sure down here especially in this area on the beach there's a lot of people I don't know if people can tell either the weather is not very good today yeah so I am curious what it would be like if it was an absolutely gorgeous day because today definitely one of the worst days it would rained a lot this morning stting to get a little bit better throughout the day but it's still pretty overcast a little cooler than normal too fingers crossed it does not rain I know well the police are even on the beach here with their ATVs uh their quad bikes today so yeah it can really really goes to show like like how many people are here it's very different than yesterday and it's almost all local Dominicans which I absolutely love I love that they all come out today and just party you know but we're still wondering if you didn't leave a comment yet why today like why is why is Easter the big party and I'm just going to go back to something that you just said I know in a lot of places like say for lost and losta specifically some it feels like the beach is kind of where like the xats and the tourists are and it doesn't really feel like the Dominicans go there they're just like in the busy town but the beach area is for tourists one thing we love about Cabaret is that everybody comes down to the beach and we mentioned before like Sundays is like Dominican Family Day and they all come together and you know and this is like Sundays on multiple steroids we love seeing like it's basically all Dominicans here and there's no worry about feeling like tourists are taking over the beach no like the Dominicans love that we're here as well I know some tourists would be scared to be here right now but I can tell you Dominicans are some of the friendliest people on the planet that ever ever met and we love what we love about Cabaret is when Anna just said the tourists and the Dominicans mix and they mix really well and that's why we love it but it's extra cool to see cabarete Beach like this today however speaking of being nervous or safety one thing we've been told that you really have to look out for this weekend in particular I should say this weekend totally I've never heard of it any other time here on Cabaret Beach but pickpocketers apparently that's the thing here that people will come from the cities and start to pick Pock people especially when you're in a really tight quar ERS which obviously we don't need to worry about right now but people said don't keep anything in your pockets um I put everything in here and it's all like super zipped up but I'm going to keep this like in front of me just in case we're around a lot of people we also heard a story about someone getting up um I think someone posted on a Facebook group that they had their purse stolen off the table so just be very wary of your personal belonging we even didn't take our wallets we just took one Visa card like a Visa and a little bit of cash and it's all zipped zipped into a pocket inside the bag so before you say like oh yeah that's what happens in the Dr it's not safe the Dominican Republic is not safe remember pickpocketing happens in so many European countries way more than here way more than here no no one thinks twice about going to Spain or Italy for instance and it happens all the time this is the first time we've ever heard about it so you know just be aware of your belongings and enjoy the day listen to the music what a contrast like totally different from yesterday I don't have any fear of like I just say fear but you know we still get a little camera shy here and there when it's really quiet there's a lot of people around so yesterday felt a little bit of that but today no one's paying attention they're all dancing having fun having drinks listening to music some of them are for sure I can see a lot once people watch us long enough they start to go like are they tick tokers and then they keep we keep going with the camera and they're like oh maybe they know what they're doing I don't think we know what we're doing volleyball's a bit louder today yeah so if you are wondering volleyball tournament still happening definitely more observers and a little bit latter today these guys are really excited so I don't know where all the teams are from but look at this so yeah it's actually women's oh some areas some areas are definitely quieter than others with people but not music listen to all this C can you even hear me but yeah you'll see more tourists here lots of people around so it's cool there is some tourists around a few yeah it seems to be at certain places there seems to be more tourists and then at certain places seem to be more Dominicans can you hear me I don't I don't think they can hear you with all the loud music but it's still cool to see the amount of people looking at us right now is absolutely absurd but hey we wouldn't have it any any other way so yeah it's quiet at this place so yeah it's really strange like the further you go or depending where you're at no music yeah there were like three restaurants right in a row that had music blar and then over here not too bad well we just stopped into Bea here on the beach to grab a beer because today you can have alcohol we also mainly stopped in here because it was the only place with seats so it just made sense finally got some presidente lights or presidant light I'll pronounce it correctly I know uh in a lot of videos we keep ending up with Corona cuz they run out of presidant not today it's in glass as well I'm not sure why they came in a can but one thing you guys might be wondering is is there like a stage or is there live music Happening Here in the town now we were told in the past there's always like a a big stage or scaffolding or something set up somewhere on the beach that's like a public concert this year there's nothing like that the closest you get I guess is kind of like that volleyball setup it doesn't help that the weather's not good either so I think the police are trying to control like a little bit of the noise level and not have the party get too out of hand cuz in the past we have heard it can get pretty crazy again we'll talk about L Tanis even though we're in Cabaret I know that place can get wild with s Santa as well so we're just happy that we got a seat we're enjoying the day with the Dominicans here having our cold beer we just wish the weather was a little better it's 24° C and when you're here for a long time and you live here trust me you can tell the difference between 24 and 28 I know if you're watching from the northern countries I won't complain about the 24° C weather but you'd understand if you were here so while Trevor was talking I did just feel a couple of drops maybe it was coming from the ocean or like just blowing off something but definitely got hit with a couple of drop hopefully it doesn't rain because that would really suck can you imagine all these people having to run indoors there's not enough indoor seating I can tell you for all these people so it'll be chaos now one thing you guys might be wondering about is the aftermath of all this like what's this place going to look like tomorrow so we heard before uh coming here and in the past that usually the next day like on Sunday the beach is just trashed and literally with garbage so that's definitely not cool we won't get to show you guys if that is the case because we're putting the video literally tomorrow it's about 5:00 in the evening on Saturday this is like the night before it's going to be the craziest edit we've ever done but we are told that the beach gets trashed and that's something that I wish didn't happen in the Dominican Republic I think over time that will change with education but it it is pretty normal for people that come here to leave trash on the beach uh usually the cabarete town like there's people in Orange shirts they they clean it up maybe today they're doing a really good job at that cuz we didn't know miss it so much we didn't see anything like in the water yet but there's a lot of people still here so it could all be under the chairs and I don't want to stare so we'll see how that goes maybe uh someone asks in a comment below we can respond and let you guys know how it was fingers crossed is not too bad cuz no one likes to see garbage on a beach all right well uh overall thoughts before we get into that we do have to get home and edit so we're going to have to stop filming or this video is not going to make it out in time yeah I know some people probably wanted to see after dark we're not not night life people in general but we probably would have tried to do it tonight just to see what it was like but editing does take quite a while yeah my hunch is it's not going to be too much different just a lot more people that are very very drunk yeah maybe more music and more drunk people that's fine we don't want to get too drunk cuz we do have to do some editing but I okay so I'm going to be the one that will say it first this isn't exactly what I thought it was going to be no and I going back to the beginning of the video we have been warned about this weekend so many times from so many people about the other chaos of it and honestly it just feels like a lot of people it it just does feel like a lot of people to be completely honest we've seen this many people or more on a beach in Italy in palmo every single day of the week so we were warned by expats especially to like leave and get out of town like go to the mountains or something go the opposite way when the Dominicans come here cuz it's it's a little bit crazy to us it's like one day one or two days this it's fine it's fun to see it's great to see this many people out hopefully like the businesses are doing really well hope the vendors are doing really well and like making it's going to go into slow season now so making up for uh for that make up for that that's it though first Easter here in the books now we know what to expect so now I think we've covered all the major holidays here in the Dr I think maybe there's one in the summer we haven't but we'll find out that because we live here if you're new around here and you don't know who we are it's Trevor and Anna delightful Travelers if you're not new we hope you guys all enjoyed this video cuz I know this was very different than our normal videos like extremely different but we had to turn the camera on we hope you enjoyed it thanks for coming back every single week leave us a comment below hit the like button hit share tell all your friends yeah and also for those of you that have been watching we will be back to regularly regular scheduled program next week and it will be uh Santa Domingo yeah we got some cool stuff to show you in Santa Domingo and I'll wait for you guys to see it all right guys that's it from Cabarete wishing you delightful travels see you soon
2024-04-04 11:57
