Shopping in Punta Cana
July 14, 2007 – 2:16 pm | by gaulardcom
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I am going to try to keep this short. I thought I might write a bit about some of the things we bought while we were on our vacation in Punta Cana.
First and foremost, if you go to Punta Cana, you will likely return with a piece of Larimar. Larimar is the national stone of the Dominican Republic. They are quite proud of it and sell it almost everywhere you go. I bought Laura a few pieces of Larimar as pendants. They are really nice.
Here are the shops on the beach that we bought the Larimar…
While shopping on the beach, we also picked up something called, “Mamajuana Santiago.” Wikipedia says this about Mama Juana…“Mama Juana is a drink from the Dominican Republic that is concocted by allowing rum, red wine, and honey to soak into a bottle together with tree bark and herbs. The taste is quite similar to port wine and color is deep red. It is seen and advertised as an aphrodisiac.” We had some of this stuff and I would say it tasted like cough syrup. It isn’t bad and it may quite possibly be the aphrodisiac they say it is. Maybe…
When you head down the beach to browse around, you are going to be aggressively called by many shop employees. They want your money bad. Just ignore them and do what you want.
We also went shopping at the shops located within Iberostar Punta Cana Bavaro…
These shops are more formally run and quieter than the ones on the beach. We picked up a beautiful painting that is sized at about 40″x30″. They take the canvas off the wood frame and roll it up, so you can get it on the plane back. We also bought a cute coconut purse for Laura and two stainless steel rings for me.
One word of wisdom whenever you go shopping at a place like this…haggle the hell out of them. You should at least be able to purchase what you want for less than half of what they initially ask for. If they say they want $120 for something, I tell them I will give them $10. I know it seems funny, but it works.
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Tags: Punta Cana, Travels
