Live the same

Oh, right, an important detail for the story—I got the biggest tip of my life on the yacht, a whole $300! It got dark, the tourists disappeared, and our bus was the only one left in the parking lot. I asked our driver to help look for them, and luckily, he remembered seeing them when they put their stuff on the bus

First, I headed to the café—it’s a nice spot, and they serve alcohol, so it seemed like a logical place to check. But nope, they weren’t there. Then I walked along the beach and even down a little path that led into some mangroves

I decided to head back to the bus, and as I was walking, our driver came running toward me, shouting something. I couldn’t quite catch what he was saying, but he was clearly telling me to hurry up and come with him.

We didn’t have to go far. Just behind the public restrooms, there was this cute little green building with a veranda and a rocking chair the same one I mentioned yesterday. The driver told me they were in there

And yep, they were. In handcuffs

Happy New Year, or whatever holidays you’re celebrating right now! Anyway, I’ll get back to my story… So, this cute little green building turned out to be the office of the reserve’s security team, who also doubled as the local police—or something like that. Basically, uniformed guys with guns and handcuffs.

I’ll admit, not all of my tourists ended up in handcuffs, just two of them. But hey, gotta make the story more dramatic, right? 😂 There were two “officers,” and, conveniently, they only had two pairs of handcuffs. When the driver and I walked in, the “cops” were trying to explain something to the tourists, but the problem was, they only spoke Spanish, and my tourists couldn’t even manage decent English

So, we started trying to figure out what had happened. Luckily, by that time, I’d already had some experience dealing with the local “authorities” and knew how to handle it. The first thing you need to do when you’re addressing a Dominican policeman? Call him Coronel...