Cities are wonderful, and I love them. I love living in one. I love always feeling like I'm part of the action even when I'm simply sitting at my dining room table staring out the window. I do not, however, enjoy traveling in them very much. Although I've figured out numerous public transportation systems, memorized maps, dealt with masses of people and all of that, big cities are not why I come to places like the Dominican Republic. So, although I was having a wonderful time experiencing Santo Domingo and spending time with the girls in the Boca Chica orphanage, I already had one foot out the door.
Leaving Santo Domingo immediately put me at ease. After a slightly confusing morning waiting at the pulsing bus station, and not really knowing which bus was ours, when it was leaving, or why none of this was even being announced, we found ourselves crusing comfortably through the lovely countryside. Travel in the DR is quite impressive. For the equivalent of about four US dollars, we took a three hour bus trip to the northeast coast, called the Samana Peninsula. Take that, Greyhound!
First of all, Samana is lovely. It's lush, green, fertile, and full of rolling hills, scattered villages, and everything you'd expect from a Caribbean nation. Every bit of it we saw inspired contented smiles, and it was physically impossible to feel anything but happy and relaxed. The town of Samana is built around a small bay, and everything is within walking distance. Although we only spent three days exploring the area, we saw the highlights and made some new friends.
Our first day was spent getting settled, getting food and getting acquainted with the town. Now, Beth and I are budget travelers, but trying to get by on Spanish in unfamiliar territory all day can really take it out of you sometimes. Believe me, I groan inwardly as I even write this. The idea of being exhausted by paradise sounds ridiculous, I know. However, it's true and it happens often throughout the learning and relearning process. So, we tend to select our cheap hotels (when we're not couchsurfing) based on the following criteria; hot water, A/C, cable. Generally in that order, but sometimes when our brains are feeling romance-languaged out, cable elbows its way to the top of the priority list. So, after settling ourselves in a sweet little pensione that seemed to fullfill our needs (and even had a kitchenette!) we were fairly crushed to find our cable was kaput. The horror! Luckily, we'd established an emergency plan for situations like this...but dominoes and dice games can only get you so far. What other option did we have then to go out dancing?
I probably alluded to this a little in a previous post, but I bloody adore dancing. Always have. I generally take advantage of any opportunity to get on the floor, and it's very fun and very easy in the DR. We went to an open air bar, split a couple 40 oz. bottles of Presidente, the Bud of the DR as far as we can tell, and took it all in. Sadly, the dancefloor was pretty quiet, and the few times we were invited out for a spin our partners left something to be desired. Between the heat, the beer, the pre-existing dehydration due to irresponsible water consumption and just plain being tired, we decided to be lame and retire early.
The next couple days included horsebacking riding (on unshoed and slightly malnourished horses, sadly) through the rainforest to see the beautiful El Limon waterfall, playing dominoes with a couple local guys, flying through country roads crammed into the open back of a pick up truck, taking our very first motoconcho (motorcycle taxis that fit up to four, even though they're not exactly designed to do so), trying in vain to visit Samana's famous "Bridge to Nowhere" and finding you basically have to be a guest at the uber fancy Bahia Principe resort to step foot on the thing, hitting up a club our guide book promised to be the hottest merengue joint in town and finding nothing but an empty room with a few sad patrons and music so loud I think even my kidneys were covering their ears, late night and post-bar pico pollo runs, and gazing across the lovely bay as the sunset silhouetted the bobbing boats. All of this was wonderful, sometimes more after the fact than others, but nothing could even touch Playa Rincon.
Playa Rincon is the kind of beautiful I can't really explain, and pictures can't capture. They say it's the best beach in the country and I believe them, all of them! In one sweeping glance there are white sand beaches, densely covered mountains, swaying palms, tropical flowers, crashing waves, a few hut restaurants serving fish, lobster, chicken and other local bits hot off the open flames, and a few local families and tourists counting their blessings. Playa Rincon is a bitch to get to, and my poor stomach was doing backflips trying to hold in breakfast for most of the moderately treacherous trip. Our driver, God bless him, asked several times if I was pregnant due to my desperate gut clutching and heaving. I think he was also fairly freaked out I'd vomit on his interior. After everything resettled itself and the shakiness in my knees dissipated, I was finally able to take in the beautiful stretch of beach. The water was clear, there were a few kids diving for coral (don't worry, it's a dead reef), the smells from the restaurant were mouthwatering and as far as we could tell we were the only Americans around.
After a lunch of grilled, whole Chillo fish (which ended with me trying a fish eye for the first time, interesting) we splashed in the waves, made the mistake of parking our towels too close to the surf, wrote some postcards, marveled a bit more, made numerous comparisons to the movie "The Beach" and kept an eye out for the lady selling coconut bread. Since we'd underestimated how long the trip would actually take, we were only able to spend about two hours in our little paradise before the sun started to sink and we thought it best to head back.
That night, I somehow inspired deep and abiding love in a very sweet, surprisingly sincere Dominican man named Leo. Now, Beth and I got used to cat calls, whistles, hisses, "hey baby's" and "ay mami's" pretty early on in the trip. Most of the time they're incredible insincere, mildly offensive, and just ridiculous. I have no idea what came over this young man, but without even trying (or being interested) I had him genuinely smitten. He was quite a gentleman, took us out, danced with us, didn't let us touch the tab, walked us home, asked shyly for a kiss and made me promise I would see him tomorrow. Even though he didn't have a shot in hell, he was a total gentleman, not at all pushy, very sweet, and treated us with respect. It was a nice change, and it earned him that goodnight kiss. I will remember him fondly, and hope he will me.
Although Samana was lovely and we could have shacked up there for days, our guide book promised great things about the northern coast. We'd already extended our stay in Samana by a day, and figured two was pushing it. As our bus pushed out early in the morning for a town five hours away called Puerto Plata, I couldn't imagine what was coming next. I surprised myself so many times in the next week, you'll get to hear about at least a couple incidents soon. Thanks again for keeping up!
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