My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
It was the last cruise of my contract and the hurricanes during hurricane season finally disturbed our itinerary. Instead of going to the islands I had gone to in the spring, we were now going to Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Grand Turk. I was scheduled for In Port Manning in Puerto Rico, and tried to trade with someone so I could go explore the place of Lin Manuel Miranda’s ancestors, but no one else had been there either so no one would trade with me. So I signed up to play with some monkeys in the Dominican Republic.
I saw these huts as I walked down the pier to meet my tour.
We rode this open air bus. It was hot until the breeze cooled us down.
Here was the view looking out at some zip lines.
This was the view looking down into the sanctuary. We had to walk through some special sanitizer so our feet wouldn’t contaminate the sanctuary. We were given plates of monkey food,
and the little guys swung down and helped themselves!
There had been an outbreak of the flu earlier that year and a lot of the monkeys had died. A few of these monkeys were orphans.
They were really cute.
The monkeys down in cages below had been kept as pets until their owners realized how much was involved with keeping a monkey as a pet. These monkeys can’t develop the skills to go back into the wild, but they still learn how to take care of themselves and solve puzzles.
After the monkey sanctuary our guide had the driver pull over to show us some local fruit. I think this might be an avocado tree. 
This was a star fruit tree
We got to taste them right off the branch!
This is a pineapple still in the ground
Then we got a tour of a traditional house.
The kitchen was a bit of space away from the living room and the sleeping rooms. Here is the fire:
The dishes:
And the cat who was showing us around.
These donkeys walked by as we checked out the outhouse.
Then on the way back we drank rum and mulled wine. It was a great day.