Every day in the Dominican Republic is a good day. There are ups and downs but when you are coming home looking at the blue water, the endless sandy beach and spectacular sunset -- it has been a good day.
My current stress is money -- I need to get some money here. We met Steve and Eileen from Virginia on the beach one day then met up again the other night. Steve asked me how the whole money transfer thing works -- I told him to ask me again in a couple months when I know more.
When we were researching our little plan, I had read somewhere that you would need about $5000 to get set-up. in DR That person was single. I figure a family of five needs more like $25 000.00. Let me explain -- there is rent, utilities, purchasing a vehicle, insurance, school tuition, one time household purchases and more that I am sure will come as a complete surprise in the next month or so.
I didn't go into this blind or without some planning. I spoke with our banks in Canada on how to access funds from overseas and was given perfectly reasonable answers -- they just didn't include some important details.
A. I learned that I could use Interac email transfers to immediately transfer money between Canadian banks with no hold periods. What they didn't mention was you can transfer no more than $2000 per 24 hour period (not per calendar day) between Canadian Banks using Interac email transfers.
B. To transfer money between international banks you can use Western Union (and they take a cut of each transfer). Missing was that you can transfer no more than $1000 per 24 hour period between international banks via Western Union (who takes a healthy ~$50 fee)
C. I have a ScotiaBank account in Canada which waives the Instant Teller (ABM/ATM) fee because there is a Dominican branded ScotiaBank system. They omitted that you can withdraw a maximum of 5000 pesos (about $125) daily -- or that the ScotiaBank here cannot otherwise access your Canadian account.
D. To move more substantial amounts of money you can always do an international money transfer between banks which has a fee. I had to do these a couple times in the months leading up to our departure -- to make deposits on accommodations and school tuition so I was aware of the process and fees. What I didn't realize was the Catch-22. To move money between a Canadian and Dominican Bank you need a Dominican Bank account. NO BIG DEAL -- come to the country and get a bank account. BUT to initiate the wire transfer, I have to be standing in a Canadian bank branch.
You need to be in country to set up the bank account but back at home to get money to that account.
In retrospect I did have options had I had all of the information. I could have:
A. Opened a joint account with someone who would remain in Canada and who I absolutely trusted.
B. Transferred a large amount of money to someone in Canada who I absolutely trust not to spend it and who will wire the money when needed.
C. Carry large amounts of cash on my person (I can only imagine the poor Dominican bank teller whose next client pulls out bundles of US $20s wanting to make a deposit in a new account.)
Oh and I don't even know where the next part goes yet -- but of course moving more than $10 000.00 will trigger the anti-money laundering forces of Interpol, CIA and MiB (I am sure).
And finally, as you start to transfer money between various bank accounts from another country all of your accounts get flagged and frozen for suspicious activity. In most cases this is probably a good thing. In our case it meant being on the phone to Canada with multiple banks and multiple banking agencies. Skype is fantastic, BTW.
We will figure all this out … just like everything else.
And we forge on … speaking of which today we stopped by the Orange cell phone store to buy more minutes for our brand new Domincan cell phone (which is another story in itself I will get into some other time). Next to the Orange store was a realtor, so I dropped in. Michel, the owner, came out to greet me. I asked if he spoke English; he asked if I spoke French or Spanish or German or Dutch … So we sat down and for the next 5 minutes I used all of my broken French, non-existent Spanish and occasionally an English word or two (trying to stick with the German cognates of course) to explain our real estate needs.
He got quite excited and I decoded that he knew of a place that would fit our needs, not be too expensive, only 100 meters from the beach and would I like to see it RIGHT NOW! He was quite surprised when we went out to find my rental car filled by my little family. Luckily Carmen's French is much better than mine. He hopped on his quad (oh, people drive quads on the road -- illegal everywhere else but here BTW) and we zoomed after him.
The place was very nice. A good size, nice pool and just down the road from the beach. We are meeting with a couple more (English) realtors in the next couple days, but this is place is a contender.
Speaking of beaches. We have been to a different beach everyday. If I knew more about oceans, surf and sand I would write a guide to the beaches in this area. In layman's terms here are my observations:
Playa Coson -- I don't surf but I expect the surf is strong enough to surf on a bit. The sand is nice with a steep slope to the water. In the water the bottom is mostly sand. We played in the surf and never had an issue stepping on something other than sand. The little restaurant "Luis" is good food, too. We had lots of fun here until Cohen lost his mask in the surf.
Playa Bonita -- One of my favourite beaches for two reasons: a) the sand was so soft -- not like fluffy blow away sand, but iike walking over warm ginger snaps that you just sink into but it remains firm, and b) a grassy knoll between the sand and the road -- perfect for drying off kids and cleaning sandy feet before getting back in the car. The surf was not too strong and there is a nice sandy bottom however getting in there are some rough rocks at the shoreline. Cadence wasn't paying attention to anything but the dog who was following here everywhere so getting in the water she didn't see the rough rocks and stubbed her toes.
Playa Ballenas -- Where we were you can go out about 20 feet with a sandy bottom before a sea grass and coral plateau starts (and then continues for a long time). Nice sandy shore with lots of commercial development including restaurants, hotels and bars on or across from the beach. Good for playing in the water and sitting in the sun. The boys were a little freaked out by the sea grass shelf. It was about 2 feet deep as the tide was coming in but we swam out over it for a while. Everything that Cohen saw as a sea urchin until I eventually found some coral and showed him what they actually look like. Chase hung onto my shoulders as I swam while he was face down/snorkel up looking at everything.
Playa ?? -- This beach is just west of the Il Portillo all-inclusive resort. This is a great beach for little snorkelers. We had a great time there today. The water never got deeper than 5 feet with a wide sandy bottom interrupted occasionally with little coral "cities" (as Cohen called them). The coral is surrounded by fish and shells, and it has lots to see. We swam between these cities and saw lots of sea life. Chase, who is five, is a pretty good swimmer and can float really well with a snorkel and mask on. For the most part he could stand up almost everywhere (sometimes only the snorkel was sticking out, but he could still breathe :) ). At a couple points I would stand in beside the coral and would hold onto the boys as the floated over top of it to get a better view. When we had enough snorkelling there was lots of sandy areas just to play around in without worrying about scraped feet. The beach itself isn't as nice as the others -- the sand is more packed down. On our way back to the car there was little crab running into the surf. We had a lot of fun because the kids couldn't see him with the surf -- the he would pop up just as they were looking in some other direction.
Tomorrow? More banking, more realtors, another beach. "Reality" begins to seep in on Friday as the boys start school then ever more so next week when Cadence starts school and I have to get back to work.
My current stress is money -- I need to get some money here. We met Steve and Eileen from Virginia on the beach one day then met up again the other night. Steve asked me how the whole money transfer thing works -- I told him to ask me again in a couple months when I know more.
When we were researching our little plan, I had read somewhere that you would need about $5000 to get set-up. in DR That person was single. I figure a family of five needs more like $25 000.00. Let me explain -- there is rent, utilities, purchasing a vehicle, insurance, school tuition, one time household purchases and more that I am sure will come as a complete surprise in the next month or so.
I didn't go into this blind or without some planning. I spoke with our banks in Canada on how to access funds from overseas and was given perfectly reasonable answers -- they just didn't include some important details.
A. I learned that I could use Interac email transfers to immediately transfer money between Canadian banks with no hold periods. What they didn't mention was you can transfer no more than $2000 per 24 hour period (not per calendar day) between Canadian Banks using Interac email transfers.
B. To transfer money between international banks you can use Western Union (and they take a cut of each transfer). Missing was that you can transfer no more than $1000 per 24 hour period between international banks via Western Union (who takes a healthy ~$50 fee)
C. I have a ScotiaBank account in Canada which waives the Instant Teller (ABM/ATM) fee because there is a Dominican branded ScotiaBank system. They omitted that you can withdraw a maximum of 5000 pesos (about $125) daily -- or that the ScotiaBank here cannot otherwise access your Canadian account.
D. To move more substantial amounts of money you can always do an international money transfer between banks which has a fee. I had to do these a couple times in the months leading up to our departure -- to make deposits on accommodations and school tuition so I was aware of the process and fees. What I didn't realize was the Catch-22. To move money between a Canadian and Dominican Bank you need a Dominican Bank account. NO BIG DEAL -- come to the country and get a bank account. BUT to initiate the wire transfer, I have to be standing in a Canadian bank branch.
You need to be in country to set up the bank account but back at home to get money to that account.
In retrospect I did have options had I had all of the information. I could have:
A. Opened a joint account with someone who would remain in Canada and who I absolutely trusted.
B. Transferred a large amount of money to someone in Canada who I absolutely trust not to spend it and who will wire the money when needed.
C. Carry large amounts of cash on my person (I can only imagine the poor Dominican bank teller whose next client pulls out bundles of US $20s wanting to make a deposit in a new account.)
Oh and I don't even know where the next part goes yet -- but of course moving more than $10 000.00 will trigger the anti-money laundering forces of Interpol, CIA and MiB (I am sure).
And finally, as you start to transfer money between various bank accounts from another country all of your accounts get flagged and frozen for suspicious activity. In most cases this is probably a good thing. In our case it meant being on the phone to Canada with multiple banks and multiple banking agencies. Skype is fantastic, BTW.
We will figure all this out … just like everything else.
And we forge on … speaking of which today we stopped by the Orange cell phone store to buy more minutes for our brand new Domincan cell phone (which is another story in itself I will get into some other time). Next to the Orange store was a realtor, so I dropped in. Michel, the owner, came out to greet me. I asked if he spoke English; he asked if I spoke French or Spanish or German or Dutch … So we sat down and for the next 5 minutes I used all of my broken French, non-existent Spanish and occasionally an English word or two (trying to stick with the German cognates of course) to explain our real estate needs.
He got quite excited and I decoded that he knew of a place that would fit our needs, not be too expensive, only 100 meters from the beach and would I like to see it RIGHT NOW! He was quite surprised when we went out to find my rental car filled by my little family. Luckily Carmen's French is much better than mine. He hopped on his quad (oh, people drive quads on the road -- illegal everywhere else but here BTW) and we zoomed after him.
The place was very nice. A good size, nice pool and just down the road from the beach. We are meeting with a couple more (English) realtors in the next couple days, but this is place is a contender.
Speaking of beaches. We have been to a different beach everyday. If I knew more about oceans, surf and sand I would write a guide to the beaches in this area. In layman's terms here are my observations:
Playa Coson -- I don't surf but I expect the surf is strong enough to surf on a bit. The sand is nice with a steep slope to the water. In the water the bottom is mostly sand. We played in the surf and never had an issue stepping on something other than sand. The little restaurant "Luis" is good food, too. We had lots of fun here until Cohen lost his mask in the surf.
Playa Bonita -- One of my favourite beaches for two reasons: a) the sand was so soft -- not like fluffy blow away sand, but iike walking over warm ginger snaps that you just sink into but it remains firm, and b) a grassy knoll between the sand and the road -- perfect for drying off kids and cleaning sandy feet before getting back in the car. The surf was not too strong and there is a nice sandy bottom however getting in there are some rough rocks at the shoreline. Cadence wasn't paying attention to anything but the dog who was following here everywhere so getting in the water she didn't see the rough rocks and stubbed her toes.
Playa Ballenas -- Where we were you can go out about 20 feet with a sandy bottom before a sea grass and coral plateau starts (and then continues for a long time). Nice sandy shore with lots of commercial development including restaurants, hotels and bars on or across from the beach. Good for playing in the water and sitting in the sun. The boys were a little freaked out by the sea grass shelf. It was about 2 feet deep as the tide was coming in but we swam out over it for a while. Everything that Cohen saw as a sea urchin until I eventually found some coral and showed him what they actually look like. Chase hung onto my shoulders as I swam while he was face down/snorkel up looking at everything.
Playa ?? -- This beach is just west of the Il Portillo all-inclusive resort. This is a great beach for little snorkelers. We had a great time there today. The water never got deeper than 5 feet with a wide sandy bottom interrupted occasionally with little coral "cities" (as Cohen called them). The coral is surrounded by fish and shells, and it has lots to see. We swam between these cities and saw lots of sea life. Chase, who is five, is a pretty good swimmer and can float really well with a snorkel and mask on. For the most part he could stand up almost everywhere (sometimes only the snorkel was sticking out, but he could still breathe :) ). At a couple points I would stand in beside the coral and would hold onto the boys as the floated over top of it to get a better view. When we had enough snorkelling there was lots of sandy areas just to play around in without worrying about scraped feet. The beach itself isn't as nice as the others -- the sand is more packed down. On our way back to the car there was little crab running into the surf. We had a lot of fun because the kids couldn't see him with the surf -- the he would pop up just as they were looking in some other direction.
Tomorrow? More banking, more realtors, another beach. "Reality" begins to seep in on Friday as the boys start school then ever more so next week when Cadence starts school and I have to get back to work.
I should have spoke to you about the whole money transfer issues. I went through similar experiences this spring. Not much easier transfer large amount of money to the US either.
ReplyDeleteLoving that I can keep up with you guys with your entertaining blog.
take care,
g