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!
