As part of our extreme buggy tour in the Punta Cana, our guides Charlie and Angela took us into a town to teach us about the local culture. The first shop we went into was the local market. The shop was small and on the corner of the counter was a small assortment of produce. The produce was mostly covered with flies and in some cases was already cut up. Apparently the many towns in the Dominican Republic do not have power 24 hours a day. As a result people come to the market and are allowed to purchase all or part of any item. So if their soup for the night requires only half a cucumber, they the store owner will cut a cucumber in half and allow the customer to buy what they need.
Punta Cana Grocery
After the market we crossed the street and went to the local hardware store. The store was set up like the parts department of a car dealership. While there were some items accessible to the customer, most items sat behind the counter. The store was packed full of many different items. Imagine if you took the variety of home depot, limited each item to only 1 or 2 and then removed all the variety. Charlie mentioned that we could get just about anything we needed, as long as a specific item. As an example one of the people we were traveling with needed a power splitter. The guy said, well no, but I have an 6ft extension cable that has 3 ports on it. My friend said that was more than he needed and decided not to purchase…. I don’t think he would do very well in Punta Cana.