Last Lap:

 Now onto the next to last lap of our trip. We are on Campobello Island, on the border of New Brunswick and Maine. Arrived here this morning from Deer Island. Deer Island is an about 20 minute ferry trip from the mainland, and Campobello is another ferry ride from Deer Island. Last night we stayed at a b&b on Deer Island called the Lilac Inn. They have several rooms but I believe that we were the only ones staying there. Very friendly couple runs it.  The description mentioned a wonderful breakfast, but it seems they don’t do that at present. I was a little disappointed but they did serve us delicious pastries, blueberry and pineapple and cheese, which I believe were homemade. 

Before Deer Island, where we spent one night at the Lilac Inn, we stopped at the Alexander Graham Bell Historic Site in Baddock, New Brunswick. It was interesting and well worth the stop. We learned a lot about Bell, who invented a lot more than the phone. He and his wife lived there for many years. 

Last night we ate at one of the only food places on the island, called the 45^th Parallel. It was also a motel. Very local and low key. All the seafood was fried which would not usually be our choice, but it was in a light crispy batter. Good coleslaw too. The woman was very friendly, but had been swamped with customers when we got there, so our timing was just right. They were all leaving around when we came. At least a couple of the people there were staying at the motel.  Others seemed local, or at least summer local. We heard the owner talking to one customer with a family, saying he’d come there every summer as a kid. I heard the woman saying something about throwing a ball threw the window, but didn’t catch the whole story.

The ferry from NB to Deer Island was free! But the one from Deer to here was $25 for car and driver, and then an additional $5 per passenger. They are run by the same company so not clear on why one costs and they other doesn’t. The times and sizes of the boats are pretty similar.

Tomorrow we will visit Campobello, the Roosevelt’s “cottage” on the island.  I had known about it for ever, and long had a vague desire to visit. That was cemented by Sherry saying that she really loved visiting the place. 

 

We have driven around the east side of the island, and are now parked at the end of a spit where you can walk to the lighthouse. Loring has gone on a short hike out to there, and I have sat here writing.  He has just returned. There is a message from Carolina, she is waiting to get info from the doctor about her test results, and whether or when they will induce her to give birth.   

So, right now, our plans are a little up in the air. We could theoretically drive all the way home and arrive late tonite. Should know more in an hour or two when we get back to the Inn and can have a phone conversation.

We did leave Campobello Friday morning, without ever checking in to the wonderful looking Owens Inn with its many rooms full of antiques, art, and interesting things.  The manager was of course understanding and congratulatory,  but said she would have to let the owner decide about a refund or credit. She and we had the same thought that maybe we could get a credit to come back at a later date. I was sad to miss Campabello, but it was for a good reason!

We drove the whole way back, about six hours, with just a brief stop. Carolina gave birth to Julian early yesterday, Sunday morning at 5am. 

To catch up on the rest of our trip:

We stayed two nights at the Lighthouse Inn at the tip of the Cape D’or.  Our reservation with them had been very casual. The first two times we tried to reach them, before we left on our trip, by email and phone, and never received a response. Finally Loring reached  him by phone  and made a reservation. We called him a couple of days before, to reconfirm, and asked what he needed to hold it, and he said to just come. So we did.

It's several miles down a well maintained dirt road, and then a pretty rough road for 500 yards or so. Most people walk up, as did we. Loring was pretty sure we would have made it with out problem in the Prius. Pretty much everyone walks inn, at the Innkeepers advice.  In addition to the guests in the four rooms, quite a few people hike in just to see the site,  which is pretty impressive. We feel lucky to have found it, and had the opportunity to experience it in both fog and sun for two days. I especially liked having the light flash on our bedroom wall all night long, every six or so seconds.

The innkeeper, Darcy, is a man probably in his 50s. He has been there for 23 years. We later met his parents who helped out with meals and with changing the rooms between guests.  They must have been in their 80s, and looked awfully cute in their matching tartan aprons.

They serve breakfast for guests, and dinner for guests and others.  For our first night, Darcy recommended we eat at the restaurant in town, the Wild Caraway, in Advocate Harbor.  It’s not a very big town, but bigger than most of the others we have driven through, like Economy.  Seems like an odd place for a pretty gourmet restaurant, but it was popular and wonderful. It’s in an old house, with lots of art on the walls, ranging from paintings to hooked rugs. They have a set menu, for $60, that is Canadian dollars, so closer to $50. I accidentally burned the menu by putting it too close to the candle, so got to keep it.

 We think Darcy may have recommended Wild Caraway because he had a full house at the lighthouse that night, which was fine; we are glad we had the opportunity to eat there, and wouldn’t have known about it otherwise. They aren’t open Monday thru Wednesday.

 

There were two choices for each course, so we had one of everything!  Here are some of the items:

Local calamari with dulse and lovage seasoning

Local flounder with beluga lentils and marsh greens

Lilac bomb Alaska – coconut almond cake, lilac ice cream, toasted meringue, strawberry and haskap coulis

 I had to look up haskap. It's a berry with a number of names, including blue honeyberry and blue berried honeysuckle.  Haskap is the Japanaese name. Now I know what those things are that looked like elongated blueberries on the plate. But they are not related.

 

Our second dinner was at the lighthouse, cooked by Darcy. It was also a set price with just one choice, and also quite good, though not as sophisticated.

I saw Darcy as a bit grizzled native, who probably spent all of his time, and all of his years, at the Cape D’or.  But we when we said we’d see him at breakfast, he told us that he was off for California later that evening.   He was probably the most laidback inn keeper I’ve ever met.

The tides were impressive at the Cape, as they’d been at the Tidal Bore the day before in Truro, when we stayed at the cabins in Economy. The tidal bore is on a river when the tide comes rushing in, suddenly and strongly, where there has previously been no water at all. We sat at the edge of the river, along with a number of others, and the young man in the information office came out just before and shouted Here it Comes.  I think I may already have written about this. But it’s worth describing twice.

I just came across a story online about the Pope's meeting with indigenous Canadians to apologize for the Church's despicable treatment of native children, taken away from their families to boarding schools. One of the native women who met with the Pope today is a survivor of the Shubanecadie Indian School, the only one in the Maritime provinces. We passed close to the site last week, in Truro, where we watched the Tidal Bore on the Shubanicadie River.  But I didn't know that until today. 

Well I think I may have caught up. If I think of anything else I will edit it in and you will never know.

It was a great trip, first road trip in many years, and having to return home a bit early just gives us a reason to return, at least to Campobello, and maybe some of the other Nova Scotia sites we missed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Few Days Later:

 

Two days later:

 

We are now at a cabin in Economy. Yep,  that’s the name. If I get around to it I will try to check into the origin of the name.* There’s no real town here, just a few houses, and the group of cabins where we are staying. It’s called the Four Seasons Resort, but not the one that might come to your mind.  It’s a dozen cabins on the water.

 Our origin plan had been to go to Burntcoat, which is directly across the bay from us. That is where, supposedly, the world’s highest tides are, in the Bay of Fundy.  But there were no available accommodations there, in the few places there are near the park.   It was Saturday, so that wasn’t surprising, but a little bit disappointing. We were worried we might not be able to find anything appealing aside from a motel in the nearby town of Truro. We only saw the commercial strip at the edge of town, so don’t know if the town itself might have been attractive.  And we really wanted to stay someplace where we could see the tides.  The Four Seasons showed several cabins available, but they were three or four bedroom ones. We called anyway, hoping we could talk them into a lower price, as we are only two.  And we didn’t have to even suggest it, they gave us one of the larger cabins without our asking, shutting down the two spare bedrooms and giving us the price for a one bedroom cabin. 

·    *   I did look up the derivation of the name Economy. It comes from the MicMac  kenomee, meaning place of land jutting into the sea.

 It's fairly nice, has a full kitchen and living room, even a tv  and though we hadn’t expected it, it’s nice to check in with the greater world once in a while. For some reason, they receive the Boston channels here. Guess it’s because it’s the largest closest metropolitan area.  Guess Halifax doesn’t count.  It’s pretty weird to be out here and be able to see our local channel.

We’d stopped on the way in, at a Truro supermarket, and bought provisions for dinner – salmon, broccoli, and some pretty good chocolate chocolate chip muffins.  We also got eggs for breakfast, and still have some bread from home, as well as granola and pb and j.

This afternoon we headed out back toward Truro, about 45 minutes away. We stopped on the way at the Dutch Man’s cheese shop, which carries, in addition to all the varieties of Gouda that they make there, a wide range of foods, crafts, etc, even an upstairs antique store attic.  And a petting farm for kids, which we didn’t visit. 

Our destination was one of the areas to see what’s called the tidal bore, which is a phenomenon where the ocean comes rushing in, and later out, twice a day. It’s unusual and very impressive.  We watched it start and then for about a half hour.  The young man in the visitor’s office came out a little earlier, and then announced “here it comes.”  It was about 5 pm.  It happens twice a day.

 As everywhere we’ve gone, the visitors seem to be mostly from Nova Scotia, judging from the license plates. I have seen a few from the US, and a few from other Canadian provinces, Quebec and Ontario.  And we met a family from Germany at our previous stop, the Markland, at the upper tip of Cape Breton. But I have been surprised by how the majority are somewhat local.

We have bought food to cook at our cabin tonite, and have plenty of breakfast food left, eggs and granola.  Tonite we are having an interesting looking pasta, with all kinds of herbs, like dandelio              blended in. We bought mushrooms and the tiniest brussels I have ever seen, to cook with the pasta.    

Tomorrow we head out, to the western tip of the province, a place called Cap D’or, which is also on the Bay of Fundy. There is a lighthouse there where the former keeper’s house has been turned into a b & b with four rooms.  They cook what sounds like a gourmet dinner. But when we tried to make a dinner reservation, they suggested another place about 15 minutes away, which is open Wednesday thru Sunday, and that we eat with them on Monday night. So that’s the plan. We don’t know what to expect from the place or the area, but that’s part of the fun.  Hopefully we will see some impressive tides there, too. They were extremely casual when we tried to make a reservation before we left home, didn’t even answer the phone or emails for a few days. And when we did reach them, they basically said, fine, and didn’t ask for a deposit or anything.  Should be an interesting place, in any case.

This morning, before heading out to see the tidal bore, we walked down to the beach here, and out almost as far as we could along the sand. It was almost low tide, but it kept receding all the time we were there, and at a fast pace. In the tide pools were hundreds of tiny hermit crabs, the largest perhaps the size of a thumbnail, and many much smaller, some the size of a little fingernail, some smaller still. And there were many miniscule fish swimming around too. I saw some of the crabs chase one another, and once a few that congregated together, first two, then a third and a fourth and a fifth. Guess I have to do some looking into hermit crab behavior.

And then, I saw something bizarre.  something seeming to writhe around in the sand. Coming closer, I realized it was a razor clam, the first live one I have ever seen. It slid its white body a little bit out of the shell, and squirted out some water. And then, it upended itself totally so it was upright in the sand, squirted some more water, and then sunk slowly into the sand until it was completely underneath. We looked some more, saw other things squirting and think they were razor clams already underground. And eventually we saw some others on the surface like the first one I’d seen.  I got a  short video, and Loring got a better one, which I will eventually post.

As we walked back along the sand toward the cabin, we noticed that we were walking on tiny white barnacles, and probably crunching a lot of them. They were all over the rocks and shells and sand, like tiny white sprinkles on a chocolate confection.

So even though we might not see the most spectacular tides of the Bay of Fundy, there is also value in observing the tiny life beneath your feet.

 

 On the way to Campobello, still in Nova Scotia, we stopped at the Noggins Hill Fossil site.  It’s a UNESCO cultural site.  The beach is covered in fossils at low tide. At least that’s what the guide told us. You can go out on the beach on your own, being careful of the tides that come in quickly. But to visit the museum you need to pay, and then you can go on a half hour guided tour, which we did. He was kind of funny, saying things like he hoped there were no geologists in the group. And he asked us if we knew what UNESCO stood for, which no one did. He then said he didn’t know either, when they asked him in his job interview. But they hired him anyway.  FYI it stands for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).  I did know the UN part.

I asked the guide, after he’d showed us several fossil samples he’d picked up, as well as others he had with him, how likely it was that there were fossils at our feet, if we knew how to spot them. He basically said 100%.  We couldn’t tell at all if a particular rock had fossils or not. But I believe him.

We had also visited the Geology Museum in Parrsboro a day earlier.  It was somewhat interesting. But I prefer the more local, less sophisticated ones like the minor’s museum and the UFO one!  At that museum they mentioned a rock shop that had been there for many years,  but closed around 2015. I asked if there were any still around, and she sent us across the river and up the hill to a small building with beautiful flower garden surrounding it. Both indoors and outside there were numerous specimens, on tables, in cabinets, and in drawers,  ranging from $3 to thousands.  Some were local to Novia Scotia, some from other provinces, and others from around the world. They even had larimar, which we had discovered in the Dominican Republic, the only place it is known to exist.  I bought several small Canadian samples, apatite and biotite from Ontario, and gamelite and stilbite/ from Novia Scotia, all in the  $3 -$5 range. All to be used, in theory, in future mixed media mosaics, along with the numerous other rocks I collected on the beaches along the way, none of which I can identify. I definitely got my money’s worth, $14,  just for the time I spent browsing through all the beautiful and more expensive minerals.

Parrsboro itself was a larger and somewhat more interesting town than most of the others along the coast. As we came into town I spotted a large statue, quite bizarre looking, in the middle of a small park. I went closer to look. I have to say it may have been the ugliest sculpture I have ever seen.  It was about 10 or 12 feet tall, with spindly limbs and an overdeveloped torso, all painted a dark red.  Strangest of all, its hair, which might have been horsehair, completely obliterated the creature’s face, if it even had one. I could not tell if that was intentional or not. It represents Gooslap, which is a mythical trickster creature of the MicMac and other native peoples. I don’t think Gooslap was supposed to look like that, think it’s just a bad sculpture. I found another representation elsewhere that is much more appealing.

There are a few shops, including an antique store, some brightly painted buildings, the geology museum, and a theatre with an actual ship built into the stage. It’s the former ferry Kipawo, the last ferry across the Minas basin of the Bay of Fundy, retired in the late 1900s.  There also a few b&bs in interesting old buildings, which we didn’t check out. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nova Scotia Sojourn, a road trip. July 2022

 

We are one week into our Nova Scotia sojourn. We left early last Saturday morning and drove to Bar Harbor, Maine, where we took a three hour car ferry over to Yarmouth NS.  It was a beautiful boat and ride.

In Yarmouth we stayed at the Golden Bamboo Inn, one of two houses owned by Alex and his partner, who we never met and whose name we didn’t get.  Together they are called the Chinoiserie Hotels, although I am not sure where the chinoise comes in. Actually Loring just pointed out that Alex’s heritage is half Chinese, so that makes sense. But it doesn’t quite convey the flavor of the place, either the houses or of Yarmouth.

   The houses are pretty grand former sea captains’ homes. They are in the process of changing the décor more to their taste.  The houses had been a b and b before. The woman from whom they bought the houses had moved into a tiny house behind the house next door. An amusing transition.

  Each had a widow’s walk with a view to the sea.  We have them in New England too, the sailor’s wives supposedly looked from there anxiously awaiting their husbands’ return. We had a whole suite, bedroom and living room, very nice. And Alex cooked us a mean breakfast each day.

Yarmouth is pretty quiet, not bustling as we expected considering it is at the end of the ferry. There is a self guided walking tour of the mansions, which it took us a couple of hours to complete, and was well worth it.  Most of the houses are single family residences now, a few are b and b’s, and a few were made into apartments.  

There are only a couple of restaurants in town, and a few more on the outskirts. But there was a lot of excitement in town, both a ribfest and a fireworks display. 

The ribfest is apparently a travelling event, quite large, and three days long.  There were five huge trucks set up, with billboards advertising their ribs, and lines waiting in front of most of them. We chose two, mostly on the basis of not having the longest lines, realizing that also might have meant they didn’t have the best ribs!  The two ribs were noticeably different but neither of us could say we preferred one over the other.  There is supposedly a taster’s choice as well as other awards, but we didn’t see any place to vote, not that we would have. We wondered how anyone could try all five, unless they were part of a large group.  I guess it would only take five, or less if they were really hungry!

There were some bouncy house type activities for kids, and from the posters I’d seen in town, I think there had been music on a previous day.

Someone had mentioned to us that there would be fireworks at 10, so after a rest at home, we went to a nearby park to watch. The grassy hill was filled with folks and families, and we had a perfect view.

So all in all, a nice flavor of the town and townfolk.

Earlier in the day, we had driven out to a scenic lighthouse on the end of a peninsula, about 10 miles out of town.  In addition to the lighthouse itself, there was a man demonstrating lobstering techniques.  Lobstering is big here, bigger I think than at home.  Wherever you drive there are houses with tons of lobster traps, many more than I have ever noticed in Massachusetts or Maine.

Next stop was Halifax, for two nights. It’s a fairly large city. We stayed at the Hotel Barrington right in the middle of town and walkable to everything. The harbor is the hub for activity, certainly for tourists, and perhaps for residents too. It’s filled with boats large and small, and stalls with food and souvenirs.  It seems that many, even most of the visitors are from Nova Scotia. 

My main desire in the city was to visit the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, really a museum rather than a gallery. I had heard of and read about a folk artist named Maud Lewis, who was originally from Halifax, but had spent most of her life in a tiny house in Digby built by her husband. She painted many local scenes and painted pretty much everything in the house as well. The house was neglected for years after her death,  but had been restored and brought to the museum, where it is now, along with many of her paintings. So, you can imagine how disappointed I was when we got to the museum and they told us the Maud Lewis rooms were under reconstruction and not open. There were several other interesting exhibits, and we did get a peek at the house thru an adjoining room. There are several books about Lewis, and also a fairly recent film called Maudie, which seems highly rated.  I will have to check it out.  I know Ethan Hawke plays her husband, but I don’t know the actor who plays Maude.

On the way from Yarmouth to Halifax, we stumbled upon a UFO site and small museum. We almost didn’t stop, but I am glad we did. The man running it, in his 70s, had been the been the first one to sight the object back in 1967.  He was 17 and had been out with a friend. Of course they were asked if they had been drinking, which he says they hadn’t.   There had been numerous sightings that night, and people assumed that an airplane had crashed into the water. Officials searched the water for three days but never found any trace of anything.  There was documentation from a pilot and copilot flying a large commercial plane who had both seen the object.  When I asked the man at the museum what he thought had happened, he said he truly didn’t know. There have been a couple of books written about the incident, but he says he hasn’t read them because he doesn’t want to color his recollections with others’ narratives.  There was a small boy with him who was his grandson. I wondered what the boy, and his other grandchildren and great grandchildren, think of the whole story.

Next we drove up to Cape Breton Island, which is the northern part of the province. We stayed in Port Hood, which is on the western side of the island. It’s a small village. We stayed in a cabin which was part of a bed and breakfast, several rooms in the main house, and three cabins.  It was run by a couple who we guess was German, very nice.  We hadn’t been sure if we would stay there one or two nights, but decided that one was enough. There was a private beach that was part of the property, and which we walked down to. There were also five beaches in town, about which they bragged. We drove down to a couple of them, on which there were quite a few people.  Nothing nearly as nice as the beaches at home.  There was also a huge trailer camp, which looked as though people stayed for a long time, perhaps the entire summer.  Some trailers had permanent looking decks.

Yesterday we drove up the coast through towns like Cheticamp, which is renowned for its hooked rugs. In the several gift shops there are rugs ranging from large wall hangings to tiny pieces meant to be coasters. I bought one that depicts the small traditional local houses and though it’s described as a coaster I will hang it on the wall.

We also stopped at Inverness,   where there had been several coal mines and where most of the male population had been miners. There was a small coal mine museum in what had once been the train station. Some of these little local museums are the kind of places I love, where the things on display are very local, and the people leading you through the museum have lived those lives themselves. The woman who was very eager to guide us had grown up and I believe always lived there. I asked her if anyone in her family had worked in the mines. She said one cousin, who had died  at age 18. She showed us his name on the plaque commemorating all those who had died there. She said that her grandmother had been adamant that none of her children work in the mines. I believe her father had been a carpenter.  

We had made a reservation for the Markland Resort and Beach Cottages  in Dingwall, where we are now.  It’s at the upper edge of Cape Breton.  It is a lodge with a number of cabins spread out throughout a large rolling lawn down to the beach.  We walked down to the beach earlier today and spotted a bald eagle in a tree. Even though we have them at home, right on our lake, it’s still exciting to see one.

The Inn has a main lodge where they serve breakfast and dinner. I had a mixed seafood chowder last night, very different from both New England and Manhattan chowder. It’s not thick like our chowder, more of a soup, quite delicious. It had mussels, shrimp, lobster, and fish. I believe all of the fish and shellfish were local.

There was a musician singing folk songs in the lounge. The mining museum had put me in mind of a song I learned decades ago when I was at summer camp. It is one of the most beautiful and haunting songs I have ever heard, and has stayed with me all these years, sixty to be exact!  It’s about the Springhill mining disaster of 1958. Springhill is not far from here.  We will drive close to it tomorrow. I asked the singer if he knew the song. He said he knows of it, but doesn’t know it, and should probably add it to his repertoire. There is a different musician tonite. Maybe he or she will know it.

The lounge is filled with wooden chairs. I read that it is all the work of one man, and is actually an exhibit, the work is not always here. It is all built from old wooden lobster traps. Every chair is different. In the dining room there are also a number of mirrors on the wall, all different, from recycled wood. They range from $75 to $100 dollars. That’s Canadian, so about 20% less in US dollars. The prices on the chairs range from $500 to $700.

Today we drove out to nearly the furthest edge of the island.  Our gps mistakenly guided us to someone’s house, where we told the woman we were just driving around. She said that people’s gps’s often misguided people. And that there was once a tour bus that got stuck and had a lot of damage.  She was very friendly, as everyone here has been.

On our way back to the inn this am we went past another small museum and lighthouse. The lighthouse had been moved from a nearby island some years ago. Around the island there have been numerous shipwrecks, some of which the museum documented, along with other local artifacts.

It’s about 630 and our dinner reservation is for 730. Loring has already gone up to listen to music and socialize.  I will head up shortly.

Our plans from here on in are a bit up in the air. We had planned to go on to the Bay of Fundy, and also to Campobello, FDR ‘s home on the the US/Canadian border, and also to stay at a lighthouse keeper’s inn for a couple of nights. They are up in the air because Carolina is due to give birth shortly. Her original due date was August 11^th, but they have moved it up to August 4^th and possibly sooner because of some health issues.  It could even be in the next few days but she may not know until the last minute. So we are trying to head back sooner so we are closer to home. Today is July 15^th.    

Well, time to head up for music and supper. To be continued.

 

Last Days in the Dominican Republic

 

We are back home. It’s been a couple of days. No major incidents on the trip back, aside from our delay returning to Logan from Santo Domingo. Our plane was supposed to leave at 230 am, and was delayed two hours. On our return we heard about massive delays in the US, and many of those on Jet Blue. Whether that had also affected our direct flight from DR, who knows. But in any case it was minor compared to the delays and cancellations many have had to deal with and still dealing with today, two days later.

We spent our last two nights in Santo Domingo, at the Casa Dona Elvira in the middle of the colonial zone. It was in walking distance of almost everything we wanted to see and do. The only exception was the Museum of Art, which was two miles away.  We actually did walk there, but in two stages, first to the covid clinic to get our tests within a day of returning home, and then the second mile an hour or so later to the museum. We did take a taxi for the return trip, although Loring would have been okay walking back too.

We were impressed with the efficiency of the clinic,  and got our negative results a few hours later.

We knew nothing about the art museum, and not too much about the other museum we visited that last day, the Museum of the Resistance. We knew it dealt largely with the political events around the 30 years of Trujillo’s repressive reign. It was worth going to, even thought the texts were all in Spanish only. There was much more text than we would have wanted to read even in English, and we knew something about the events due to our reading while we were there. More about that a little later.

Although we were there two nights, it was virtually three whole days. We arrived at 1pm after a two and a half hour ride from Las Terrenas. Since our flight was so late at night, we didn’t leave for the airport until 1130 pm.

The little 16 room hotel was nice enough, although with some reservations. ( no the pun was not intended.)It was in an old colonial house with an interior tiled courtyard. There was a small pool in the center, but we didn’t use it or see anyone else use it. It seemed more of an ornamental idea and probably a lure to potential guests. As it turned out, there was also what they called a jacuzzi, but had cold water, up on the roof, along with a nice sitting area. We may well have used it but didn’t find out about it until our last day. Our concerns: although they served a lovely full breakfast, the service was extremely slow. We waited about 45 minutes after we had ordered, even though we were the first ones there for breakfast. The second day we were also the first, but the server/cook went to the table that arrived after us, and remembering the previous day, we were concerned that it would be a long wait again. This second day there was a server in addition to the cook, so we hoped it would be quicker service. But when we expressed our concerns, he said, well would it be okay if our breakfast was served in a half hour?  Uh oh. But they actually brought it within about 15 minutes.  And okay, the eggs were scrambled rather than the fried we had ordered. But were delicious. And served with fresh fruit including mangoes, bananas, and melon.

Did I mention that the upper branches of the mango tree in the courtyard reached almost to the door to our room? They weren’t ripe yet, but if they were we might have been able reach out and pick them.

 Aside from the museums, we mostly just walked around the city, visiting several historical sites. There is a lot of beautiful colonial architecture, some in good shape and either residences or restaurants or hotels or other businesses. Others were in decrepit shape and often abandoned. They were right along side each other, with luxurious dwellings next to abandoned ones. We didn’t see any really poor or really wealthy neighborhoods, although granted, we only saw a small portion of the city. But the combination of modern and old styles, and maintained and abandoned places, was striking.

Did you know that Santo Domingo is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the Americas? Columbus, or Cristofal Colon, as he is known in Spanish, landed here after first making landfall in the Bahamas, and established the city on his second voyage. 

I find it amusing that when we refer to America today we mean the United States. What about all the other parts of the Americas ? Yet when today we say that Columbus “discovered” America, we aren’t even meaning what is the US today.

 

Let me conclude by telling you what we read during our visit. We always like to read books with a connection to where we are visiting. Here, we read Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies, a  fictionalized story of the Mirabel sisters, Dominican heroes who sacrificed their lives in the cause of  resistance to the Trujillo regime. Although fiction, it seems quite true to the actual circumstances. It’s a beautifully written book. It was also helpful when we saw other references to the sisters, in both the Art and Resistance Museums, as well as in another fictionalized book, The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa about the same period. Have to say we were both a little disappointed with that book, which seemed more like reporting than literature, about Trujillo’s assassination.   Sad to say, as we have liked the other books of his that we’ve read.   Nevertheless, it gave a lot of interesting information, although got tedious toward the end. Loring got tired of it and gave up before finishing it.

We both read  Dominicana, by Angie Cruz.  And both also read a series of connected short stories by Juno Diaz called Drowning.  Alvarez, Diaz, and Cruz are all Dominican born, came to the U.S. as children, and though  their books take place  largely in the US. there are many references to or sections that take place in the D.R.  I also read Diaz’ well known This is How You Lose Her. And Loring read a Graham Greene book that takes place in Haiti.

It was a wonderful trip, and I am so glad we finally decided to discover the country, which is so much more than the resort ridden vacationland that I had previously pictured it to be. Several people had cautioned us to “be careful” on our trip, ie about crime.  We encountered none of that, even in the city, although I don’t doubt it does exist in areas of the country that are replete with “Americans,” that is the U.S. kind.  We encountered almost no people from the U.S. at all.

 I guess I will stop here, unless anything else occurs to me before I post it!

 

 

Last events in Las Terrenas.

Just a few things to catch up:

Today is our last day here in Las Terrenas, and also my birthday. Can’t think of a better place to spend it. We are in this town in a great house, with one door on the street, and the other leading directly to the beach. You walk thru the garden gate and right onto the beach, feeling a little like Dorothy when her house lands and she opens the door into a world of color.(when color was very new in movies.)

Today like every day, our choice was lunch at home, at the gelato place two doors away, accessible from either street or beach, or, savory or sweet pastries from the French patisserie a couple of blocks away.

A couple of things I didn’t mention earlier: there are virtually no shells on the beach at all, something I don’t remember from any other place I’ve been. It’s not really a problem, as I have shells from a number of places, including some that date back nearly 50 years, from our trips to Hummingbird Cay in the Bahamas. Plus all the shells I bought from our neighbor’s estate sale a decade or so back. She used to make decorative crafts and had many containers of them.

Another thing that is relatively scarce here are insects. I love finding many kinds of insects, but not the biting or stinging kind (but they are always very good at finding me.) I have gotten a bite or two here and there, but not in the quantities I usually do, which is a great relieve. Just another reason to love this place.

ONe more thing that I mentioned on fb with a short video, but neglected to describe here, and one of the most entrancing sights and stories I’ve come across here. Our first night, and then every subsequent night here, we’ve seen fishermen near the shore, with headlamps casting an eerie green glow, and holding square nets with which they combed thru the waves breaking near shore. They were obviously fishing for something, but we had no clue what it was. And we didn’t see anyone catch anything, although they diligently looked at every scoop.

Loring googled fishing in the DR, and got our answer. They are baby eels, called elvers. They are very desirable and very expensive in Japan, for sushi and other dishes. In addition to here, they are caught in Maine, and probably other places as well. They became so popular that regulation was enacted in Maine to keep them from being overharvested and poached.

They have gone for as much as $2000 a lb, which explains why the fisherman here are ok with just finding a few at a time. Nights after the first, we did see someone catch one here or there, and put it in a plastic container around his neck that looks like a half gallon milk carton.

That’s all I can think of now. I am heading out to the beach. (Loring is already there) for our second sojourn of the day. We spend a couple of hours there twice a day, morning and afternoon. And will have time for one final beach visit tomorrow morning before our driver picks us up at 11am to bring us to the city.

Our last Terrenas decision will probably tonight’s dinner, which one of the beach restaurants to choose, and what to eat! The restaurant we ate at the first night was perhaps the best. But it is a little more formal than the others, and its seating is looking out at the beach and ocean, but on a paved floor.

I hate to be picky, but I do prefer the ones we can walk to and eat at right on the beach, without shoes, and with our toes literally in the sands!

Well off to the beach for a few more hours. I will no doubt play in the waves with my underwater music device, listening to everything from Bob Marley to Shakira to Bruce Springsteen.

More time in Las Terrenas

Our next to last day in Terrenas. Then we head to Santo Domingo for our last two days before heading home.

Today is the first day that it hasn’t been beautifully sunny.  It didn’t seem like it ever rained here. No one out on the beach today. I feel bad for people who are only here for a few days. Just hope that it’s sunny tomorrow, which is our last day and also my birthday.

If this keeps up we may have to have dinner inside tonight rather than directly on the beach.  I have had some kind of seafood every night – shrimp, grilled whole fish, conch,etc. With different sauces and preparations.  

Our days are all very similar : breakfast on our outside living room, a couple of hours or more on the beach, back to the house for lunch, read a bit more, back to the beach…  shower, ( usually outdoors in the garden) more reading and/or writing, then strolling down the beach to choose our restaurant of the evening. There are about a dozen just to the right of us, back to back, and a few others in the other direction.

Loring usually does two long swims a day. I play in the gentle waves for about the same amount of time, listening to music on my underwater mp3 player as I do in the Y pool at home.

Except for today. 

I have to say this may have been the best ocean water I have ever been in. And we have been to many beaches in many places over the years.  These waves are gentle and the rhythm is lulling. The bottom is sandy and descends gradually.

The beach itself is beautiful too. I used to value a beach partly by how secluded it was.  Now that doesn’t seem to matter, as long as it isn’t terribly crowded. I like to watch the people strolling by, most of whom, if they aren’t Spanish speaking and assumedlly from here, are French.  Same thing on the streets. The kids are so much fun to watch. They are all so happy, gleeful reallly, in the water. Some are with their parents, others are in little groups and I assume they are local. How nice to live someplace where you can walk to the beach. I guess that is what I am doing too, but only on a very limited basis.

Did I say that there are days when I haven’t been out in the town at all, just on the beach and in our living room/garden. So no shoes, either. One night after dinner the waiter came after me as we were leaving, saying don’t forget your shoes. I told him I didn’t have any!

There is a real mix of shops outside our door. Some are tourist shops with crafts, beach clothing etc. and others more for locals, like bodega type mini markets. There are a fair # of real estate offices, and we have been quite surprised at the prices, which are quite high. And they are mostly condos or rentals in developments or communities. I haven’t seen anything that is right on the beach like ours, except for developments that say beachfront, but that means the property is on the beach, but not the actual accomodations.

I have been good (so far) and have not purchased any crafts. There are some nice things, mostly wood,  some metail, and a few stalls with paintings. But the paintings seem like poor imitations of the more well known Haitian paintings. 

The thing that has caught my attention, though, is the gemstone larimar.  It’s native just to the DR, and to a particular area, on the opposite side of the country from where we are. Many stores are filled with jewelry made of larimar. But I prefer the uncut raw stones, and plan to purchase one or several to use in mosaics or mixed media pieces, perhaps with beach glass from Puerto Rico.

I read that someone discovered a mine with the stone in the early 20^th century, but it was seemingly forgotten and then rediscovered in the late 20^th. The name comes from daughter of the man who discovered it, combined with mar, which is ocean in Spanish.  It is a sea blue sea colored mineral, much of it veined with white striations. Its color has  somewhat of a similarity to turquoise, but wouldn’t be mistaken for it .   

I wonder if this is really the only place that it exists.  Maybe there are others that haven’t been discovered yet. In any case, should make a good souvenir. 

 

Dominican Republic 2022

·        Our fifth day in Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic. I’d never really considered the DR as a travel location, because my (mis)conception was that the country was wall to wall exclusive all inclusive resort developments, just the kind of place we don’t want to go! And of course all of that is there, at least I assume so. But there is much more to the country, and we have found a wonderful corner of it.

·         

·        This is

·   our first trip outside the country since the pandemic began, and my first trip of any length since then.(Loring has managed to do his yearly wilderness backpacking trip both years, since their goal is not to see anyone at all for the two weeks) My only travels in two years have been four days in Philadelphia when covid #s were seeming to subside, and a recent overnight in Connecticut.

 For this trip we wanted someplace warm with a direct flight from home.

Las Terrenas is a small town on a peninsula along the northern coast of the country.  Our house couldn’t be better. The front door is on the street, of the main beach road of the town. The backdoor fronts directly on the beach, thru a small garden with an outdoor living room. (thatched ceiling, no walls.) Aside from the beach, it is where we have been spending most of our time. There ‘s a gate at the end of the garden, and then you are on the beach.

We are the only house in town that sits right on the beach. Up and down the beach from us are a row of restaurants, with tables right on the sand.  No need for shoes unless you are going to town!

I have only been on the beach and in the house today, so no shoes at all. Loring did venture out briefly to buy fruit, mangoes and bananas and a papaya, at one of the small mini marts just a couple of blocks away.  Most every day we go out for something. One day for sunscreen. One day for gelato!

The restaurants are great, every meal has been delicious. We haven’t been to the same restaurant twice, anad probably wont hit them all by the time we leave. We have had kind of fish dish every night, whole grilled fish, filets with a delicious sauce, shrimp and calamari in a sauce, etc.

Our routine here has been to have breakfast and lunch here, and dinner out. In other places we have tended to have lunch as our big meal out, partly because we had to go further for a restaurant.

So we’ve had cereal, meusli for Loring, special K for me, with bananas, or, eggs with a baguette. Oh, did I mention that there’s a French bakery down the street?!  Four or five different kinds of bread,  croissants, pain au chocolat, meat pies, fruit tarts…

The gelato place is only two doors down from our house. Yesterday we had gelato for lunch. Other days lunch has been bread or crackers, cheese, and some prosciutto type meat for the first couple of days. There is a big supermarket, about a fifteen minute walk away. We went there the first day and loaded up, and may go again.

The beach here is beautiful ând not too crowded. Palm trees provide shade. And the water, well it may just be the most wonderful ocean water I have ever been to. We’ve been to many many beautiful beaches over the years, but this one has the calmest waves I can remember. I am perfectly happy just floating around for an hour or so once or a couple of times a day.

The street outside is busy, with the majority of vehicles  motorcyles, some with up to four people including a kid or two.  After that, ATVs, and then cars, and a bicycle here and there. It’s loud on the street, but from inside the house you hardly hear it. The waves are louder.

Last night after dinner, we walked down the beach a ways, and came across an amazing sight.  There were a dozen or so men in the shallow water, each with a headlamp and a net. The headlamps provided an eerie light to the men as they each drew their net across the water. We are not sure what they were fishing for, and didn’t see anyone catch anything. Perhaps they are there every night, we will have to go see.

The people here are a mix of locals and visitors, and it’s not always easy to know which is which. There are very few people from the US. We’ve only heard English sporadically, and most of it has been British.  I have heard more French, after Spanish of course, then any other language.

Over the weekend it was somewhat more crowded, but not terribly so. More families with children. I am guessing that at least some were on day trips from Santo Domingo, two and a half hours away.

There are still some kids around, some with adults and some on their own. There were two boys that came selling something on the beach, and a few more adult vendors. I have been really surprised at the lack of hustling, on the beach and in the shops. No one   said let me know if you have any questions in the shops we went to, and the beach vendors were not at all insistent; a mere no gracias sent them on their way.

Before we left home more than one person Loring knows had said “be careful” referring to theft and other crime I’m sure. But we haven’t seen any of that. I’m sure it’s more prevalent near the resorts and other high end developments. But that is exactly the kind of place we don’t want to go! I don’t want to be insulated from the people that live here. And while this is a resort town, it is pretty low key and friendly. Don’t tell anyone, but we don’t even lock the gate to the beach when we go out. The owner told us it wasn’t necessary.

One last thing, down the street from us is one of the nicest playgrounds I have ever seen, with certainly the best view. (although I’m not sure how much that matters to the kids.) There are kids on the structures, and parents on the benches, and some adults hanging out who don’t even have children with them.

I will stop here for now, come back in a couple of days when there is more to report.