Caribbean, a Dream Come True

DEPARTURE

Finally, I, Luisa, and my best friend Rita managed to take a trip that until some time ago was just a dream. In fact, we dreamed of a trip to the Caribbean but for a series of reasons we never tried to make the dream come true, then tired of seeing those wonderful places only on TV and full of stress, one evening at the pizzeria I say to her "listen, shall we leave for Santo Domingo?" and she in less than a second says "Yes"; at first we didn't give weight to what we had said to each other because it must have been the umpteenth time we said it, then out of curiosity I took a catalog and called Rita to show it to her; the prices were interesting, we could make it, so what? Off we go, we start organizing our long-desired trip.

Departure on 03-05-04 at 17:15 from Malpensa, with terrible weather, direct flight with Blu Panorama (traveled terribly) to La Romana arriving at 21:15 local time; transfer to Bayahibe at the Viva Dominicus Palace village (beautiful and super organized, we recommend it). As soon as we arrive, once the paperwork for the room assignment is done, we go to try the pizzeria, given the snacks on the plane..... I must say that for being in the Caribbean the pizza wasn't bad at all.. once dinner is finished, straight to the room, exhaustion overwhelms us.

FIRST DAY OF VACATION

At 05:00 we find ourselves on the balcony watching the day break... jet lag...., we pack the backpack with creams and little creams and go to have breakfast, then a meeting with the operator for the usual info about the village and excursions etc... Finally off we go, the wonderful sea of Santo Domingo and the sun await us.. the sun??? Actually after five minutes, just time to put our feet in the sand, a tropical downpour arrives... fortunately they don't last long. In fact the period wasn't the best, there's the transition to the rainy season in the month of May.. Sun, sea, relax, the mind lightens, abandons its problems... lying down we look at the place where we are and it still doesn't seem real to us that we managed to take that vacation we had talked about so much.

We decide to do at least two excursions to see what the place offers us, the excursions we did are one by sea and one by land to see the villages.

SAONA ISLAND

Departure with small boats whose guides are crazy, no joking, they are very good but they go very fast in my opinion and Rita's... we stop to see the starfish, we sail along the Eastern National Park and then we arrive at Saona Island and here the landscape is very tropical... white sand, palm trees and turquoise sea. Then we head to the fishermen's village to have lunch, after eating we have a bit of time to look at their shops full of colorful paintings, the people are very cheerful and everyone calls us to come in and have a look.

As good tourists we always have the camera in hand and while we make our way back to the beach to board we make friends with a girl of about four years old who smiles at us and looks at us with her big black eyes, she makes us so tender and we ask her if she wants to take a photo, she says yes and after taking it we start playing with her, she is so cute, her mom calls her but she runs after us... the guide calls us, we have to go....

DOMINIBUS

Departure from the village with a very characteristic bus... it has no windows, it's all open, it's very colorful and the roof is made of palm leaves.. there's a bar corner with music, in fact after a few minutes we start hearing salsa and merengue CDs. The first stop is at the sugar cane plantations, we stop at the edge of a field and some cutters approach and offer us a piece of cane to taste, it's very sweet.. the guide explains to us that the cutters are Haitian and not Dominican and that they are paid 2$ per ton... There is a lot of poverty and they live in sheet metal shacks, but despite everything they are always cheerful; the children when they hear the noise of the bus come out and run to get candies or pencils or anything else, but it is dangerous to make them run while we are moving so we stop and distribute some crayons, pens and candies to them...

When we set off again Rita and I are no longer very cheerful, seeing that village touched us a lot... But probably knowing the effect, the guide starts singing and dancing to try to cheer us up again... We see other villages, then we take a boat ride on the Yuna river (I think that's how it's spelled). Lunchtime arrives and we stop at an Italian restaurant, just time to have lunch and we have to leave immediately.. There is a lot of traffic because it's the last day of the election campaign, so there are parades of cars, people in the streets, it almost doesn't feel like being in the Caribbean.... The next stop is a fruit plantation, the owner, very courteous, invites us in and here we see the cacao plant, coffee, pineapple, passion fruit etc.... obviously they offer them to us to taste. We set off again to go to a grocery store where with a few dollars we buy pure cacao and Vitamin R...

Rum. Before returning we take a tour through the streets of La Romana.

END OF VACATION

Our vacation is now over, we have to return to Italy but before packing our bags we take one last walk on the beach to immerse ourselves one more time in that beautiful sea....

Greetings to all