The lull of the waves.

The repetitive sounds of waves hitting the sand is so soothing, and equally so, at least in a calm ocean, is the lulling motion of the waves when you are floating in the sea. It was a very conscious decision to leave home for a tropical place at this particular time. We did the same thing eight years ago for the first Trump inauguration. Although I did watch part of it then, and more of the pink hat march. Loring went for a swim then. This time neither of us had any desire to watch. And even though one is still aware of events taking place, just by virtue of being in another place, where you know that most people are not focussed on the event, makes it much more tolerable. Today we had another sumptuous breakfast at the hotel. They serve from 8 am to 10 am. We have seen almost no other people eating at the restaurant. Wondering if perhaps breakfast doesn't come with every reservation. There are somewhat more people at dinner. Although nothing like our first night, Friday, when there was live music and a bigger crowd. I am glad that breakfast comes with ours. Today it was the Americano breakfast, scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, bacon, toast, fruit salad. It was more than I could eat. This may be the first time in my life that I turned down bacon. There was so much that I gave two slices to Loring. This is our last day here. Tomorrow we leave at noon for Las Terrenas, where we will stay for the remaining 12 days of our visit. It's not that far in miles, but a three and a half hour drive. We haven't had a car here, and haven't needed one, nor will we in Las Terrenas. The only thing I would have wanted to see here is the center of town. Loring did walk down there along the beach this morning, while I established myself on the sand between stands of lounge chairs and umbrellas. I might have been tempted to rent one, but we didn't have any money with us. The one guy who approached us said it would be 500 pesos for two chairs and an umbrella, about eight dollars. So I guess it would have been around $4 for one, not unreasonable. But I am ok lying on a towel in the sand as long as I have something to use as a pillow, in this case Loring's towel while he was walking down the beach and swimming back. However, shortly after I lay down on the beach it began to rain. And continued, more than the brief shower it often is in places like this. Although it's warm and not really unpleasant in the rain, I didn't really relish trying to read while getting rained on. So after about fifteen minutes, with the sky not showing signs of quickly clearing, I walked back down the beach and onto our hotel deck. The lounge chairs we have been using there each day are not covered. But there are some comfortable chairs and sofas where I settled in. About fifteen minutes later Loring returned. At noonish we went back to our apartment and read for a while longer, then had lunch. I was not very hungry after our big breakfast, but knew I would be later if I didn't have something. We have been eating light lunches of cheese and bread or crackers, with some cucumber and tomato. We've had a very good hard cheese, perhaps cheddar, with cumin, and a soft queso fresco, a mild white cheese available in the supermarket at home. It's begun to rain again, a good time to write, but also quite pleasant on our porch overlooking the water. I am not expecting the rain to last much longer, and we'll then head out to our own section of the beach right in front of the hotel, It's somewhat quieter here today, as we'd guessed it might be, now that the weekend is over. The family with several kids who have spent the last few days here, the kids spending the entire day between the pool and the beach, has now gone, and we miss them. They were so friendly and joyful, and we enjoyed watching them. But there are still families with children along the beach who seem Dominican, as far as we can tell. I think the rain has stopped, so, time to head back to the beach.

Return to the Dominican Republic

It is Sunday. We left Boston Friday morning on a four hour direct flight to Santiago DR. This is our second trip to the country. We rarely go to the same place more than once, always wanting to discover new places. That is with the exception of Paris, where I can never go too many times. Eight years ago, though, we did go on a second trip to Guadeloupe, right on the cusp of Trump's first inauguration. We didn't go to the same airbnb, but to one a few doors down, also right on the ocean, that we had seen on our previous trip. It was upstairs from the bar in the TV show Death in Paradise. This trip we are returning to the same house we stayed in three years ago. But we are not there yet. It was only available on this coming Tuesday, the day after tomorrow. And tomorrow is the inauguration. I was determined to not be in the US for that. So we are here in Cabarete for four days. It was a good choice. We are staying at the oddly named Ultra Infinity Hotel. There is a long stretch of beach here, and we are on the far end. Further down, the beachfront is occupied by myriad hotels, restaurants, and bars. It is all pretty low key. But on our end it is pretty quiet, and the waves are calmer too. There is a constant parade of people walking along the beach, and they all turn around right at our hotel, because there is an old concrete pier jutting out right past there, a bit hard to walk over. Our apartment faces directly onto the ocean. We have a nice balcony with comfortable furniture, Our bedroom overlooks the water, too. There is a kitchen and a second bedroom, which we don't need, except for serving as Loring's dressing room! There is ample closet space, but peculiarly, almost no drawer space. We have found that to be true at many places we've stayed, hotels and b&bs. There must be a reason why, but we haven't figured it out. So I have used the closet, and Loring uses the bed in the spare bedroom as his. Breakfast is included, and there is a wide selection of choices, including a number of different omelettes, pancakes, french toast, waffles, and more. There is a choice of fruit juices, including passion fruit, pineapple, watermelon, orange, and lemon. And fresh fruit is served with each breakfast entree. Pineapple, canteloupe, watermelon, papaya, apple, a different combination each say. The first night we ate here at Ultra. I had a conch dish, Loring had fish. Quite good. Last night, we walked down the beach quite a ways before deciding on a restaurant. The setting was great, table on the beach, away from the loud music that most places have. The food, though, was disappointing. My shrimp dish with passion fruit sauce was ok but not great, and had crunchy pieces that weren't appealing, that I think might have been the passion fruit seeds. And Loring made the mistake of not specifying that he wanted his grouper steamed, not fried. It was very dry and not great. And the service was very very slow. We are used to slow service in many places, but this was extremely slow. The service staff was very friendly though. But I don't think we'll go back there. Tonight, we will eat here at our own place again. Yesterday, we walked down the beach quite a bit and stayed at a spot with our towels spread out on the sand. Most places had lounge chairs, which we assume were for rent. But we found a spot between places where we could spread out. We walked back to in front of our own place and went into the water, me for the first time. It was calm and pleasant. But no sooner had I immersed myself than a police officer blew his whistle and motioned for us to get out of the water. There was a local man and his two kids next to us. They got out too and he asked the young cop why we had to leave the water. His answer was that his boss told him so, and he didn't know why. The local man was friendly and spoke good English. He said that he worked at one of the local hotels, the Majestic if I am remembering right. He made a joke about being loco, a play on being local. Loring thought the only reason he could think of was that there had been a shark sighted. We don't know, and today there was no problem. There are tons of wind surfers and even more kite surfers, dozens, and maybe more than a hundred. Loring noticed that they also were all gone mid afternoon yesterday, perhaps also told by the cop or someonne to leave for whatever reason we had been. But they were all back today. There are venders walking up and down the beach, some with jewelry, some with cigars, others with merchandise undiscernable. They are hardly hustling, in fact seem kind of lacksadaisical. One guy was texting on his phone while carrying whatever was his merchandise, not paying any attention at all to potential customers. The visitors here are a very mixed bunch. There are some other Americans, some French speaking, many that seem Dominican or at least are Spanish speaking. Lots of families with young kids, but also many couples and groups around our age. Since it's the weekend, we aare wondering if there will be less families tomorrow. We'll see. Well, Loring is bugging me about heading down to dinner, so I guess I'll stop here.