The night of karaoke was the first time that my Mom attempted to keep up with my day drinking. I have a pretty decent ability to continuously drink and ride that buzz (I feel like you have all probably seen me not maintain this buzz and move to defcon drunk, but that is not normal…insert opinion here). She started to get a bit louder and I was excited because that’s really why you go on on vacation with your Mom, to get a bit drunk, say truths you never have before and eventually make asses of yourselves. During the time of our cocktail drinking, a whole band had setup right behind us. I am sure they were waiting for us to get up so they could move our seats, as we were right in the way, but we remained. I was getting nervous because my Mother was pretty gung-ho about doing karaoke and that doesn’t jive with me, ever. I even ran into the wifi room (also known as the lobby) and messaged Alex that there were drunk rumours of karaoke and to please send help…to the Dominican! The best part was when my Mom leaned over and told me to look at these band guys in the pink shirts behind us and sort of winked implying they were hot. I told her that unfortunately she hadn’t whispered that at all and they were definitely aware of her feelings. She thought that was hilarious. We went to dinner to try and sober up and realize karaoke was a terrible idea. After dinner and possibly a nap, Mom was still convinced we were doing it. I tried to explain to my Mother that although I am loud and am ok being the centre of attention in a small group, karaoke is something I have never managed to do because it freaks me the fuck out. My Mom signed us up, chose a song and then we just sat there knowing they would call upon us at any point. I knew she would pick Carole King. When they called us up first I realized we were opening up karaoke night with a super downer song. It’s like LET’S GET THIS PARTY STARTED pan to us singing “You’ve got a friend.” We got some applause at the end probably due to the part that we can both comfortably hold a tune. One lady gave us a very enthusiastic thumbs up, probably a big Carole fan. We spent the rest of the night realizing we had to redeem ourselves with a party song. We probably came up with a thousand ideas, none of them perfect and then the evening ended. We would just have to remain the downer Carole King ladies who can’t read an audience. God why could we have not at least done “I Feel the Earth Move”?! Lesson learned.   

What highlighted how fancy this resort was, was the bathroom. I am a bather and I assume, going to most hotels and definitely resorts, that I will be showering because the bath is not up to scruff. This bathroom was totally marble from floor to ceiling and had a jet tub – ahhhh!! Half way through the trip I decided to have a pre-dinner/post beach bath. I was filling up the tub and decided to get the jets going. A sound that resembled a jet engine began and then, to my surprise, the jets started spraying water…onto the other side of the bathroom. So after one solid spray that made me realize this was not good, I ran for the button which I think just made it go again. Water was spraying on the walls, over the toilet, onto the mirror and was pooling at warp speed on the bathroom floor. At this point am I am panicking as the bathroom is beginning to flood. I hit the button again and it stopped. My Mom calls out – is everything ok? I said YES, I JUST NEED EVERY TOWEL IN THIS ROOM IMMEDIATELY and as she gets up she sees the water coming out of the bathroom into the room. And when I explained to my Mom how come I didn’t yell – it is because I don’t yell. I just need to fix the problem asap, what does yelling help? I realize something bad is happening and need to deal with it. We couldn’t stop laughing for hours. We replayed the story a hundred times and my Mom could not get around how I would not scream and yell over a bathroom flooding extremely quickly. I showed her parts of the bathroom that the water had hit just to show the strength of the jets. I’m almost glad I didn’t feel those in a tub as they might have ripped through my body. I never did end up using the tub for fear jetpacolypse may happen again or by body would be ripped to shreds. 

The highlight of our hilarity was our day trip out. We decided to do the day excursion that had us going to a waterfall, a school, an outdoor place to learn about local resources and a cigar factory. The closer the trip got, the more we had concerns about the 200 stairs down (and UP!) to the waterfall and the horse ride to get there. My Mom thought she just might die doing the stairs and my back was so fucked up from the mattress in our hotel, I had already spent one full night trying to sleep in weird positions on a blanket on the floor. Riding a horse seemed like the thing that would commit the spine pinches into full blown herniated discs. We went down to talk to our travel rep dude. He said that if we didn’t have knee problems everything would be fine. Ok we may not have knee problems but we have enough extra weight on both of us to probably create knee problems, ya know what I am saying buddy? He basically made us feel bad about being out of shape and having crooked spines and okayed us, medically, to participate. I told my Mother we should write to the company to let them know this kid with a 20 year old laptop just offered us serious medical advice. Because if we die on that trip, we should probably sue. 

The bus came to get us at the resort. It was like a giant safari jeep. A few women jumped off the only seat that had room and ran over to take pics of our gorgeous resort. Us, not wanting to wait, jumped onto that same seat only to have them scowl at us about it. The guy behind us told us we were right to sit and that they should not have got off the bus. Little did I know this would be the first of many ridiculous things these ladies would do. The bus drove out of the town and into the hills and stopped at the zip lining place. My Mom and I had discussed doing this. Well to be clear she thought it would be fun and I thought it sounded awful and wanted nothing to do with it. Everyone got off the bus except the same 3 women who had caused issue at our stop. We were the group doing the waterfall instead of the zipline. We would be stuck with these 3 ladies for the rest of the day. For those of you that have read my travel scribbles before, I do not do well in tour groups. It’s like mob mentality takes over and everyone becomes an idiot. This would be no exception. The tour guide figured out that my Mom and I were English and the ladies were French. The beginning of the tour she explained the whole day in French and then when she went to explain it in English the woman in front of me talked to her friend loudly the whole time. I didn’t hear a thing. Lucky enough I had understood most of the French but I still found it rude and annoying that she spoke through the whole thing. At this point I was pissed. Lucky for everyone there, I had emptied out half a bottle of 7up at the hotel and filled the rest with rum. It was 10am and I casually started sipping on it. 

Our first stop was at a little outside shelter where they would go over all their local resources. When we introduced ourselves at the beginning and they asked us where we were all from, I said I believed we were all Canadian. The other woman says that they were actually from Quebec. I rolled my eyes and thought, GREAT! We are on a trip in the middle of the Dominican with some overly chatty, rude, separatists. What the fuck. The tour guide talked about coffee, coconuts, rum, Mamajuana, Moringa, honey and we sampled everything. At the end, the Quebecois women asked our tour guide to take a photo of them. We asked the elderly woman in front of us to take ours. We handed her my iPhone and realized, like the amazing tourists we were, that she was standing there enthralled by seeing us on a screen but most definitely did not know how to use an iPhone. Mom and I stood their posing until we realized no photo would be had. The older woman started laughing and then we started laughing but we didn’t really have the heart to tell her she was not taking pictures. So we thanked her and took the phone back. The tour guide realized what was happening and took our photos but we were laughing too hard for them to be decent. Just after we got back onto our jeep, it started pouring. It also turned out that the jeep had broken down. There were huge holes in the canopy and water was splashing all over us. I lovingly cuddled my little 7up bottle and wondered how, being trapped in a leaky, broken down jeep with Quebec separatists, could get any worse? And then I watched the eldest French woman reach into her bag and pull out the pieces of a recorder and put it together. Like the horrible recorder flute things we learned to play in elementary school. Sweet mother Mary and Joseph, no. Then the little recorder diddy started. This was also the time that I wished I’d emptied out the whole bottle of 7up so that is was all rum.

We went to a school afterward but I felt weird about interrupting a class so white people could parade around but my Mom had brought pencils and being a teacher, thoroughly enjoyed it. I waited outside. I heard the woman start to play her recorder for the class and I almost ran in to apologize to the kids but I left it. Then we went to the cigar factory. They asked if I wanted a sample. I was surprised but they handed me one and lit it. I inhaled it like a cigarette which was not my best decision but I casually did not hack up a lung but felt like dying for about 45 minutes.

The highlight of our day was by far the waterfall. This was the part of the trip we thought we would never make it through. Me with the spine of an elderly woman with osteoporosis and my Mom without the fitness level to walk 400 steps without seeing death in site. We were each given a horse to ride and a human to babysit us. The one other time I have ever been on a horse was when I was a young child. I was at my “interesting” neighbours (who had a so called petting zoo), where I was wildly bucked off because I was holding a balloon and apparently that threatens tiny horses. I had never been on one since. So I was in no way looking forward to this experience. And thank god my caregiver did not speak English, as the whole time we traversed through the Dominican outback, I was swearing like a sailor in heat. My Mom couldn’t stop laughing from in front of me. I could see what the horse was stepping on and thought, I would trip and fall walking through this, he is definitely going to do the same. Side note here – I felt so bad for the conditions the horses worked in that when I returned I found an international Horse Welfare charity and contact them to let them know the situation. They did get back to me but hint – no random international horse charity in the world has the resources to do anything about this. But that was how I dealt with my horse guilt.

It was while on this horse, being walked by a local man, that I really felt like an asshole for not learning a lick of Spanish before coming. I was trying my best to communicate to the man who was looking after my life, in between me swearing, but all I could say was Cerveza and Gracias. When the fuck did I become such a tourist? Then we all stopped in a group, tied up the horses and our handlers now walked us down the 200 stairs. I was ok. Stairs are not on my list of things I can’t handle. But as we went lower and lower, I became concerned. I yelled ahead to Mom to ask if I should alert the helicopters to come get us at the bottom. She was basically so out of breathe she couldn’t answer. I assumed the answer was yes. When we got to the bottom there was a place to swim underneath the waterfall. It seemed like far too much hassle to me, to get into my bathing suit and go into the water, that I could not see an easy way in or out of. My Mother on the other hand, who at this point was glued to her helping man, didn’t give a shit and was going to swim. Her handler looked the other way for a couple seconds and when he looked back, my Mom was barreling across the path to the huts to change. He panicked and bolted to her side. It was so funny to watch. He knew and I knew, he was her only chance at surviving this trip. But he took it seriously. He caught up with her quickly and then proceeded to, on multiple occasions, save my Mom’s life.

I have never tried to write this part down, I prefer to act it out, so bear with me. My Mom was overly confident here. She walked out of the hut with the mission of getting into the water, like there would be zero issue there was no stairs and railing. Her lifeguard/handler was more aware of the perils here. While my Mom had changed into her bathing suit, I had been watching a model get glamour shots done at the base of the waterfall. So it was a stark contrast and extremely funny to have my Mom gingerly lowered/slide into the same pool of water. As I saw her get in, I wondered how she was going to get out. This is where we differ. I analyzed all angles and aspects of this pool before deciding if I should go in and I saw no way of making it out safely or gracefully so I said Fuck it. I saw my Mom wade around and waited for her face to look like, how the fuck do I get out of here? Our handlers were all in a circle having a health and safety conference or betting which one of us would die on the way up. Then I saw my Mom look around and I started laughing. She saw where everyone else was getting out and it was not good. But god dammit if my Mom didn’t just go for it. It was a slimy ledge that she had to hoist herself up onto then somehow get her feet under her without wiping out. I know I should have been concerned but it’s hard when you are laughing so hard. As I saw her go for ledge, she sort of threw her body at it in an attempt to beach herself onto the slippy ledge. Then I saw her handler realize what was happening, I have never seen anyone move so fucking fast in my life. He could see she was never going to make it so he threw what he was holding and ran across the shallow ledge to try and rescue my Mom. He seemed like a small guy but god bless him for having the strength to drag/pull my Mom out of the water. As he dragged her onto the ledge the top of the bathing suit went up over her belly. I am the worst daughter in the world but at this point, but I was cry laughing so hard that even the train wreck photos I was taking were not great. But she didn’t stop there. Once she was dragged to her feet, my Mom confidently walked through a wading pool to a soaking wet, warped board that people were gingerly walking on to cross the water to get back onto dry land. It was like watching an ACME cartoon where someone is about to die over and over again but someone else in the scene is preventing this from happening, while they have no idea. When her handler realized how confidently she was walking towards the board he dove towards her, as well as two other guys! They all knew she was absolutely about to wipe the fuck out. I was cry/laughing level 1000, I know I know. So as one man dives towards her from the direction she is coming, 2 other men run through the water to her from the direction she is going. As my Mom touches her foot to the board and starts sliding, she all-of-a-sudden has 3 strapping men holding her up. She slides a bit but keeps trooping at warp speed. I am in a crumpled ball at the end of this board waiting to tell my carefree Mother how many times she nearly died and how hilarious it was to watch. 

Our next mission was to escalate the 200 steps we had gone down. After about 1/4 of the trip up I had huge concerns about my Mom. I was quite far ahead of her and I could hear here laboured breathing. I thought, this is fucking stupid, my Mom is going to die on these fairly safe steps and not the 20 other ways she nearly died 5 minutes ago. I looked back and I could see my Mother’s handler becoming less like a helping hand and more like a human cane, to eventually a paramedic carrying a cadaver. We actually did it. We did make it. No one died. At the end of the trip you were asked to tip your manservant. I told my Mom that she owed her life to him, so figure that out in renumeration. She gave him a ton of well deserved money, like probably what he makes in a week or maybe a month. I feel like it’s not a vacation until you high five over the fact that no one hurt themselves or died.

Needless to say we had a great time. We drank too much, we got too much sun, we took a death defying day trip and made it home in one piece. Huzzah!