Monday, April 4, 2022

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!

 

 

No comments: