Dominican Dream

Flying on the jubilation of two freshly finished degrees (and possibly an airplane as well), Rose and I headed to the Dominican Republic for a 12 day endeavor into the hotness of beachy sand, sun, cigars and rum.

"12 days?" you say. "Isn't that an awful long time to lay around and do nothing?"

This was my only concern as I settled into a lounge chair on the beach, a Grisham novel in hand. Will I get sick of this? Will we get sick of each other? Will we get sick of the food, or even worse, sick from it?

Well, maybe one or two of those things happened, but that didn't keep us from having the most relaxing time of our lives. We chose to do the all-inclusive thing because we wanted to avoid the sort of vacation where you come home and you need a vacation from your vacation. And we went for the 12 day option because once you pay for a week, the second is like half price.

Glorious beachy hotness

So first I read The Broker, by John Grisham - pure entertainment. Then I dove into The Da Vinci Code, just because the whole world has been talking about for the last three years, and I wanted to see what all the kerfuffle was about. I also read most of 3 issues of Car and Driver, 4 issues of Harper's Magazine, and about 4 or 5 of a collection of Vinyl Cafe stories. Oh, and a short book called Letters from the Wingfield Farm. Hilarious. Same sort of humour as Vinyl Cafe.

Rose read Blink, and The Red Tent and Friend of My Youth (Alice Munro).


Our favourite reading spot

Oh, somewhere in between all that reading, we also went scuba diving. First we had a free 1 hour lesson in the pool. Then we headed on a bus over to the small town of Sosua, donned wetsuits, got all our gear, and headed with our trusty guide in a small boat out to the spot they called "Three Rocks." Don't ask me why they called it this, because there were 5 large rocks jutting out of the sand, about 4 to 10 meters deep, each with its array of coral and fish for our viewing pleasure.

So down we went with our tanks, regulators and masks and our instructions to depressurize your ears, and breathe full and regular breaths. We brought bananas tucked into our wetsuits, and our guide brought us to a spot where we could feed the fish. It was just like feeding ducks or pigeons in the park, and soon the fish swarm you like I've seen piranhas do on National Geographic. Even though I knew they couldn't hear me, I started yelling at them to give me some space. It seemed to work, until I brought the banana out again, and soon I could see nothing but a blur of fish surrounding me. So I gave up the banana and moved on to more amazing discoveries.

We saw one of those bottom feeding fish that swims on its side, and blends in with the sand. We saw this cool coral thingy that would hide when you made a noise like snapping your fingers. We saw sea urchins, and fish of all kinds. After 45 minutes of swimming around sort of weightless, it was time to head back up to the surface. Best 65 bucks I ever spent.

Us and our trusty guide


A really old castle we went to as part of the city tour


Some crazy bug

So that was the vacation. We layered on the sunscreen pretty thick, so our tans aren't as dark as you might think. No tan is worth the skin cancer, I say.