My Tropical Paradise

It was February of 2001 when I decided that we were in desperate need of a vacation. Mike's birthday was coming up, as well as our 5th year wedding anniversary in May. We were contemplating having a second baby, so I figured "if we don't go now we never will". Chiara was about 2 1/2, so I was worried about finding someone to watch her. So I came up with a plan.

I wrapped the vacation catalogs in wrapping paper and gave them to Mike for his birthday. When he opened it, he was confused. I said, "pick somewhere and we are going!" Surprisingly, he agreed that we could go, but where? Should we return to our honeymoon destination of Jamaica? What about Hawaii? Or Mexico? Oh no, none of those. He pointed to pictures of a place called Punta Cana. I had never heard of it. Neither did he. "But it looks soooo nice", he said. I have to be honest, I didn't really want to go to some unknown place. But since I told him it was his choice--I let him pick it. It was less expensive to stay at a "Six Apple Resort" in Punta Cana than to stay at a "Three Apple Resort" in Jamaica. Hmmmmmmm.

Then we both started freaking out about who would take care of Chiara while we were gone. Out of the country. For a whole week. Our dear friends Connie and Ben took her for the first part of the week. They live really close to the day care, so they could just drop her off each day. Then, my dear friends Theresa and Eric took her for the end of the week, where she could play with her best friend. We told Chiara, "this is going to be YOUR vacation." I wrote out a whole booklet on "The Care of Chiara". They must have thought I was nuts. I added every possible detail they might need. (First time Mom, you know).

So we flew off to the Dominican Republic. If you don't know where it is located, it is on the same Island as Haiti, in the Caribbean. Punta Cana is on the far Eastern tip (punta=point).

When we headed away from the airport, I was starting to panic. What did we get ourselves into? There was an accident on the road--a truck that crashed down into some trees. There were some "locals" directing traffic. They made the sign of drawing their finger across their throat. Is there someone DEAD in that truck??? Where are we?

We drove and drove through some VERY POOR areas. The scariest thing was seeing young children walking home from school and they were sooooo close to the bus and other traffic. I was scared they would get hit. There were lots of shacks. Definitely a poor country.

Every so often we would see people with MACHINE GUNS! I was scared.

Close to an hour later, we arrived at our tropical paradise. Hidden by jungle, were some of the most beautiful beaches in the world! (Yes, I did read that somewhere.) Immediately we were handed tropical drinks while we waited for our room to be ready.

The resort was gorgeous. Words cannot express the beauty.

The food was better than anything I have ever eaten. I ate breakfast, brunch, lunch, snack, dinner, and 10pm snack every day. I gained at least 5 pounds in a week. (I was only 110 lbs. so that was huge for me.) They had the freshest and best seafood I have ever had. The shrimp was so good. The calamari was very tender (not a bit of rubberyness like you get in the states). I ate Mango at every meal. It was ALL-INCLUSIVE. They made Paella right on the beach.

There was tons to do: merengue and salsa lessons, shows, table tennis, swimming, etc. etc. There was even an on site casino--we spent less than an hour there (we weren't stupid).

We did everything that was offered AND spent lots of time laying on the beach! That is our favorite thing to do. It was kind of difficult to get good beach pictures, because women went topless on the beach. I really didn't want to aim my camera toward someone with their top off. It took some getting used to, but by the second day, it was no big deal. I even teased Mike about taking my top off. I didn't really have the guts to do it though.

We only took two trips away from the resort. One was a snorkeling/party boat. The snorkeling wasn't very good and there were a lot of drunks on the boat. The other place we went was to Manati Park. It is a small zoo. I was hoping they would have manatee's, because of the name, but they didn't. They did have swimming with the dolphins! That is something I always dreamed of. It was one of the highlights of my trip.

The local language in the Dominican Republic is Spanish. However, everyone knew English. When they had shows, the announcer did everything in 5 languages! The people there were very friendly and helpful.

Americans were rare visitors. Most of the tourists were from South America, India, Europe, and Canada. It was a really neat experience.

If I ever get a chance to go again--I will jump at it. It truly was one of the best vacations of my life!

My disclaimer: the picture quality is poor, because they are pictures of pictures.