Those going on this day trip from Santo Domingo to Sanoa Island start at the Pizzerelli Pizza Palace at six forty five in the morning.
There is no one on the street this morning when I walk to our assigned pick up point, but, at the pizza place, there are five of us who are met by Isidro of Colonial Tours. We follow him down stone steps, out of the Colonial Zone, where we load onto our tour bus transport. Picking up more passengers in Boca Chica, along the way, we are full by the time we all get to Bayimbe where we board several small boats and a catamaran and putt putt out to Sanoa Beach, our destination.
Santo Domingo is, I have found, far away from the best beaches of the Dominican Republic. The real sand and surf activities are on the north shore of the island at Punta Cana, Bayimbe is a cute little town being discovered and developed by foreigners and Sanoa Beach is clean and secure for all travelers even if locals walk the beach selling their jewelry and local crafts that you have already been showed a hundred times.
On our sail back to the mainland at the end of the day, where we re- board our tour bus and return to Santo Domingo, there is dancing on our catamaran, too much booze, but very happy passengers.
It is dark when we all get home, a twelve hour trip for sixty five bucks, a value when you add all the pieces.
I never see these beaches without wondering about sailors marooned, Robinson Crusoe, pirate treasure buried by the foot of palm trees marked by an X on a yellowed map hidden deep in an old chest that has been in storms around Cape Horn.
A trip to the Dominican Republic isn’t complete without getting sand between my toes.
After each trip, new moments join old moments in one big jigsaw puzzle.
Today’s moments can stand on their own, but, they seem to pick up depth and velocity when they hold hands with older ones.
Comparing moments brings wisdom, but learning, I have been told, is best done with a Pina Colada in one hand and a barbecue wing in the other.
Cocoa is grown mostly in West Africa but is also cultivated in the Dominican Republic,Grenada and Nicaragua, all located in the same geographical band circling the waist of our planet.
Cocoa is labor intensive to grow and turn into products people will buy, but it brings us chocolate, which tastes good to most everyone and is healthy now, unless you ask your dentist.
This Cacao Museo is located north of the Parque Colon, in Santo Domingo, and it surprises to see all the products that are made with cacao beans as the base ingredient.
Business is slow at the museo this afternoon, but reading the health benefits of unprocessed cocoa is going to send me to a health foods store when I get back to New Mexico, right after I get my healthy bottle of rum at my neighborhood liquor store..
My bar of chocolate goes down sweetly and when I leave the museo, I can still taste the chocolate all the way back to my guesthouse.
Chocolate,as ancient Aztecs believed, does keep Doctors away.
Even back in pre- history, people were afraid of their health care providers, and fear of going to the dentist has always been universal.
Promoting chocolate as healthy is a quite brilliant piece of marketing.
If it tastes so good it can’t possibly be bad for us?
This little plaza is dedicated to an important poet with a simple stone inscription.
Pellerano was a man who moved to the Dominican Republic from Curacao, stayed, and also raised a daughter, Luisa Castro, who was one of the most influential woman writers of Latin America.
” La Nuestra, ” is a glowing statue in the plaza of a Dominican born poet and activist, Judith Burgos, who died of pneumonia in Harlem at the age of 39 who was, likewise, a shooting star.
Little niches pop up in the Colonial Zone as you walk, with simple signs on walls saying this was the residence of a past President, this was where a playwright wrote his searing social criticism, this was where a priest was martyred for his beliefs, this was where the first hospital in the New World was established.
Poets use few words but the words they use must fit exactly, contain enough punch to outlast time with time’s changes of culture, etiquette and politics. Poets write about grand things as well as things as minor as a cup of tea, a morning walk, or a cat sitting on a window sash as the sun rises on a bougainvilla bush outside the front porch.
This is a quiet little plaza towards the south of the Zona Colonia. on the same street as the Larimer Museo and the Cathedral at Parque Colon.
Societies recognize their fleeting spirits, the ones who touch clouds, see deeper and farther than the rest of us.
This plaza is a small intimate poem you read out loud to yourself on a warm March morning as you stroll the shaded walkways.
Larimar is one of Earth’s creations, formed by great pressures, huge temperatures, great shiftings of the Earth’s crust over millions of years. It is found only in the Dominican Republic where it is mined, cut, polished, and fashioned into fine jewelry.
One of the shops off the Parque Colon in Santo Domingo is the Museum of Larimar which is both a museum and retail shop that sells larimar, as well as amber, another Dominican Republic treasure.
This little upstairs museum has English as well as Spanish descriptions in its history of how Larimar is created, how it is mined, and how it is used by it’s devotees. The sales ladies are low pressure and the soft blue and white gemstone is pleasing to my eye. Any of these necklaces would look well around a dainty woman”s neck, dressed for a nice dinner engagement with the person of her choosing.
There are street vendors in the Zona Colonia who have propositioned me to buy their stones. They hold a cigarette lighter with a flame up to their pieces to show their product is real and not plastic. Buying the gem in this museum, however, gives me a written guarantee and certificate of authenticity for not much more cost, which makes it a better bargain.
What is hard is seeing worn photos of tunnel rats who dig deep to find the gem. Their faces, in these photos of the exhibit, are dirty and their mining implements simple, shovels and pry bars and even bamboo sticks.
Most things we covet have tales of hardship behind them.
Shouldn’t these real gemstones, millions of years old, wrestled from the Earth, polished and turned into jewelry, be worth more than the pieces of paper we purchase them with?
Will we ever get all the men out of the tunnels?
Playing Alto Sax is no easy affair.
Playing solo, in public, with no supporting team, is similar to shooting a game winning basketball free throw, in a championship series, with everything on the wire.
Parmenio plays with spirit.
There is room, in music, for all of us.
Even though our two playing styles and melodies are different, we alto sax addicts have to deal with intonation, technique, and what goes on between our ears when we throw sheet music away and play from our hearts.
Hearing another alto sax player who plays because he wants to is a joy.
We all play because we love it, but there are times I want to put my horn up for sale.
Melodies, like words, don’t always come easy.
Yes, there is trash on the sidewalks. Yes, you have to watch your step. Yes, people live close together with no yards,few garages, a myriad of empty buildings waiting for bank money and investors to fix them up. Yes, there is noise and congestion. Yes, this is an urban landscape. Yes, there are dogs and cats sleeping on the sidewalk. Yes,people speak a different language. Yes, getting around without a car is humbling.
On the other side of the equation, there is vitality and energy here. People are friendly. You see something new on every block, every corner, every intersection.
Back home my covenant controlled community has all houses virtually identical and all projects must be approved by an unseen board that sends out a newsletter to communicate and has compliance officers making daily inspections.
I don’t mind my street back home but I could live happy on this street too.
Living on a street named for the ” Stars “, makes me think this street is the best place on the planet to be right now, even if it doesn’t look that way.
Different streets, in different places, can be very seductive.
I can be seduced.
This Palace was built as a present to the son of Christopher Columbus who raised his family in the substantial home when he was the Governor of the Dominican Republic when this country was still controlled by Spain.
There are many rooms inside but there was no electricity back then. Chamber pots took care of personal business, hot baths were drawn up by servants for the ladies of the house, food spoiled quickly. Heat for cooking was generated by wood fireplaces and the multiple kitchens of this casa and government headquarters were located outside the home because smoke got noxious in the main house.The bedrooms have no closets and you look out at vistas through openings cut into stone walls.
Walking through the outdated casa, the huge, thick, stone walls are not cozy. The clothes displayed on mannequin’s in the entry were made for royalty, hand made with the finest cloths and craftsmanship, but they are restrictive in a climate that is hot and humid. These stoic figures have crosses around their necks to remind us and them that we are all here by the Grace of God and life is both dangerous and difficult.
The poor, in the time this Palace was built, didn’t own homes and ate the blandest of diets. They had few clothes, no personal vehicle and no cell phone. They hadn’t been to school, couldn’t read or write, and could be put in jail or killed without a trial.
It jump starts me to see how things have changed for the better for so many more people over time.
More people, in developed countries, are now closer to being equal in stuff than they have ever been, but why has stuff always been the measure of a countries or person’s value?
The entry fee to this old home is only 100 pesos and includes a tour guide.
This palace, set on the far side of the Plaza Espana, was built in the early 1500’s for Diego Colon, a son of Christopher Columbus. In succeeding years it fell into disrepair and was eventually reconditioned by the local government and is currently maintained as a national treasure.
The tour guide is worth twice the admission price. You put headphones on, turn the machine on, walk yourself through the palace at your own pace. When you come to a room you look for a little postcard with a number on the wall. You punch that number into your tour guide and it, cheerfully, gives you all the information you need to take yourself back to the 1500’s. These clothes, furniture, and decorations are those of the upper class, the privileged of the time.
With my trusty tour guide, I get a quick education and run through twenty postcards on the walls.
There were once little kids running these halls before going to their old tutors to learn about running an empire.
At night, having a cocktail at the Espana Plaza, it would be nice to see Columbus come out on cool evenings and regale us with stories of his epic journey as if he were still standing on the bridge of his ship looking at the stars on cloudless ocean nights.
It gets harder and harder to do unique things the further down time’s tunnel you appear and that makes those who have done spectacular look even brighter.
It rains in the Caribbean. This rain has blown in this afternoon and sends me sheltering under a roof overhang on one of the main streets in the Zona Colonia.
People, on motorcycles, wrapped in large plastic trash bags, zip through the streets and get out of the weather in nearby parking garages. Security guards have a leisurely smoke and dogs are nowhere to be seen as water puddles, rain droplets hit your outstretched hands like little needle pricks.
Afternoon rains here are regular in March.
When we were little, in Albuquerque, we would go out after a rain like this and make little dams in the street gutters to stop the flow of runoff. Our efforts were not always successful. We would go home soaked to the bone and leave our clothes on the back porch before we went inside to change and have dinner.
While I love the rain, I love it the most when I can watch it and stay dry.
Building dams in street gutters is kid stuff but kid stuff takes a long time to rub off.
These are a pair of Scott’s work shoes from when he used to work hard.
Instead of being covered with paint, which was Scott’s trade when public school teaching became intolerable,one of these shoes has residue from floor tile adhesive on its toe.
The problem with these shoes comes up in Caribbean or Latin American countries where shoe shine hustlers want to clean them on sight. They swoop down out of nowhere and are fiddling with my shoes before I can wave them off.
Part of travel is using precautions. Make a copy of your Passport to show to people in lieu of the real thing. Don’t wear flashy jewelry. Don’t tell strangers where you live. Don’t drink water, except bottled. Go in groups at night. Don’t do things abroad you wouldn’t do at home. Get all your shots. Use sunscreen. Use local currency. Don’t insert yourself into police business or arguments between men and women.
My newest precaution, added to this list, is going to be to clean this adhesive off my shoe.
I could wear my Croc’s but they are the worst walking foot wear ever created.
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