Meaning to Life | Exotic Caribbean

Archive for the ‘Caribbean blog’ Category

Friday, August 6, 2004
The island of Hispaniola, on which we live, is about three times bigger than the state of Massachusetts, and we on the Dominican Republic side share it with Haiti… another independent republic. Roughly one third of the land mass is Haitian and two thirds Dominican. Squeezing the recent historical story of the island into a single sentence it can be said that the two countries finally went their own ways in 1844 when the Spanish-speaking Dominican side fought for and gained independence from their Haitian neighbors, who incidentally had gained their own independence from France a little further back in 1804.
In Haiti they use two languages namely French and Creole. Although far more widely spoken Creole was only finally made official as recently as 1987. We hear quite a lot of it in and around Boca Chica because there are many who come to settle here from the extremely impoverished Haitian side to improve their lot on this “better” side of the border.
On our side the official language is exclusively Spanish and although it differs from the land of Don Quixote, it is arguable that in general no more than the difference between British and American English.
So Spanish it exclusively is – apart from recent small incoming gatherings such as our own little Playa Vista enclave with our own strange, dare we say entertaining, mix of international English accents – or so we thought, until we talked to a bar guest from San Pedro de Macorís the other day. San Pedro is a sizeable city in itself half an hour to the east of Boca Chica and famed for its quality baseball players notably the super Chicago Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa. Our visitor told us of a genuine English speaking enclave in that city. He told us of the Cocolo Community where descendants of sugar plantation laborers brought in from the British Antilles still speak English. Apparently from the turn of the 20th century and even as recently as the 1940s people were brought in from St Kitts, Nevis, Montserrat, and other English-speaking Caribbean islands. It is said that the Spanish language is making steady inroads in the USA – well, with the growing Playa Vista enclave, the Cocolo Community and the new President Fernandez’s plans for more English teaching in the schools to keep up with the internet explosion, we are quite sure that the reverse is the case here in the Latin DomRep!

Meanwhile seven years later:
Now with the end in sight of President Fernandez’s eight-year period of office and regrettably it is hard to discern any noticeable improvement in English comprehension from any initiatives his government may have taken. But perhaps the divide is narrowing anyway with the increase in numbers of Spanish speakers in the USA along with the very evident boom in Internet useage.

Thursday, June 17, 2004
We will be delving a little into a very different but equally exciting world this week with a view to maintaining and even perhaps enhancing the positive ambience that we try our best to cultivate and a story that goes to show that we at all times really have the welfare of our guests in mind…really:
“The news came rushing in so hot that it is no longer clear who or what was the original source of the news. It landed smack bang in the middle of a bustling bar on a very sunny afternoon – one of the good long term customers at the bar had won the incredible sum of £235,000 (well over US$400,000 in real money) on a football pool! The effect was truly fantastic. The customer was astounded… it was almost as if he didn’t even known that he had made a bet in the first place and we have no knowing what those seated around him thought, though we were fairly sure it must have passed through everybody’s minds that they were in for a free pizza and drink at the very least. Incredibly even before the excitement of this news had rippled fully around the bar it was announced on television that yet another Playa Vista customer had hit the jackpot in the lottery. He was guaranteed at least $100,000 but excitingly it would probably be far more than that when the final calculations were done. The name of this customer was never mentioned as he was new to the bar, unknown to us all, but by brief description should you come across him he was of medium build, about 55 years old, had very silver spiky hair and an attractive Caribbean tan. The spiky-haired new-comer too was astounded, but did at least seem to be aware of having bought tickets for the lottery that he now had won.
The instantaneous reaction to this extraordinary downpour of money showering on Playa Vista guests was that it would make a very good piece for the blog”… and I was still of that opinion even after I woke up!

Meanwhile seven years later:
Dreams can be a lot of fun: come to think of it running a bar on an exotic island in the Caribbean was rather like a dream!

Monday, March 22, 2004
Post-visit to still winter-cold Europe, as promised, here we are right back! Europe clearly has a few things going for it but one of them is definitely not freedom from urban terrorism. After passing through Madrid and London you would have to be deaf, blind and stupid not to be aware of the problem lurking ever ominously. Talking of political disputes it is natural in Europe to assume that a problem in a neighboring country is also your problem and hence quite a number of people their asked what the affect of the political upheaval in Haiti was on our Dominican half of the island… Pleasingly the answer to all was and still is “nothing whatsoever”.
A brief scan around Boca Chica on return reveals for example that the high street is still missing the Hexenkessel, but the three recently renamed bars are in full flow in the middle of a still bustling high-season Boca Chica and of course Playa Vista has soldiered on through the absence with the help of its many friends. Our thanks to them and let it be known that it is good to be back!

Meanwhile seven years later:
My how things can change. You are very much in the picture regarding the old key night-time establishments in Boca Chica but a massive earthquake and an outbreak of cholera in Haiti have very much changed the “nothing whatsoever” effect to quite a lot. At the same time it has to be noted that European cities have thankfully been much quieter terrorist-wise than you might have anticipated seven years ago.

Tuesday, August 12, 2003
Columbus said that the climate in Hispaniola was best described as ‘perpetual June’. Nevertheless… it is high summer here and numbers at the beach are swelling. They swell for various reasons, but the main ones are always that people in many parts of the world take their annual holidays in August and that the locals seek refuge at the breezier and therefore fresher beach side away from the sweltering heat of their Santo Domingo neighborhoods. This year though we have an additional wave of visitors thanks entirely to the 14th Pan American games taking place nearby. Our usual international gathering has been added to by the likes of Mexican sharp shooters, Canadian wrestlers, Jamaican team managers not to mention the press contingents – all of them enjoying the special flavor that the Boca Chica beach has to offer on their days off, bringing their own spicy variety of interesting stories to the bar too and all of them playing their role in the ongoing ‘Playa Vista’ soap opera’.
Meanwhile seven years later:
Columbus was right and the weather rarely ever lets you down. Meanwhile the Pan American games moved on to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2007 and next year they will be in Guadalajara so perhaps we will see you on some pleasantly breezy beach in Mexico.

Monday, July 21, 2003
Something you really should know! Boca Chica is in an excellent location with respect to the country’s principal airport.
According to one very good customer of ours – a frequent picker-upper of people at the airport – it is just 6 minutes away and that is not an average but regularly achievable time because there is little chance of a traffic jam as there are no traffic lights along the excellent highway leading right to good old Boca Chica .
We believe that as a base camp Boca Chica is undersold. The first and last night’s stay in town whatever else your itinerary involves would be a deserved reward before you embark on the next part of your journey whether it is into the interior here or overseas. If your business should be concentrated in Santo Domingo then you could do far worse than basing your stay in the far more relaxing, pollution free and always entertaining little town we have here. Commuting the 30 minutes to the big city is extremely feasible and when business is finished you would be very well set up right in the trusty pleasant sea breeze with a gin and tonic or whatever… takes your fancy.

Meanwhile seven years later:
Boca Chica’s convenience to Las Americas International Airport Dr. José Francisco Pena Gómez has not changed one iota. It might be a quieter town these days but then perhaps that would suit some a little more!

Monday, July 14, 2003
You have heard it first here! Development is, for better and for worse, gathering pace in Boca Chica – not least on the beach. An extension of the police vigilance -set up to stop the illegal ‘playeros’(itinerant beach bar operators) referred to in a previous entry– is being planned by the tourist police (Politur) in that they will be making aquatic patrols to ensure that there are no underhand shenanigans at sea which will include stopping people scrambling over, and therefore damaging, the natural coral reef barrier that makes the Boca Chica bay so attractive. The beach itself will be replenished with dredged up quantities of sand especially and urgently necessary at the far east end alongside the Hotel Hamaca. Decorative lamps will be added along the length of the beach to entice people to venture out for a stroll in the evening too. The street lighting that has been erected in the main high street will finally after one and a half years of deadlock be lit also and the mega port project in adjacent Andres is being extended to cater for large passenger cruise liners. All this information has come from people “in the know” – we really will need yet more parasols… and soon too!

Meanwhile seven years later:
Rumours can always flatter to deceive. The playeros have still not been asked to justify the legal standing of their operations. We did see the very occasional aquatic patrol. No sand has yet been dredged or replenished. The lamps along the beach never arrived although the street lights were turned on. The Andres port of Caucedo was expanded with two more giant cranes arriving from China for increasing container ship capacity but no cruise liners have ever docked.

Sunday, June 29, 2003
As you may know we do like to keep you up to date on the parasol situation here at Playa Vista because it is so dear to our hearts and the latest is a major breakthrough with Coca-Cola. Unfortunately it comes at a cost of… well, money actually.
We did omit to mention in a previous entry that in addition to daily parasol put-outs we also have four eight-foot diameter parasols which stay out the full 24 hours. Originally supplied by Coca-Cola – thank you very much, but poorly supported thereafter. In spite of them very kindly coming up with 3 bright shiny replacement Coca-Cola canvases for the very sadly faded originals about one and a half years ago (remember we needed four) the intervening period of coaxing, cajoling and then almost begging for just one more yielded a big zero. Until this week that is, when our desperate offer to pay for half the cost of production tempted them out of their reticence. The cheque has been issued, the order has been made and we are now eagerly looking forward to be able to brag about Playa Vista actually now sponsoring Coca-Cola! – The Real Thing!

Meanwhile seven years later:
The Coca-Cola franchise went through a lot of difficulties in the intervening years which we presumed were due to the transfer of its ownership. Things seemed to recover because we even ended up getting a brand new replacement refrigerator.

Saturday, June 21, 2003
Just in case those of you with pesos investments were getting worried about the situation in the good old Dominican Republic we can bring you some financially reassuring news. The Dominican peso has not only stopped its uncharacteristically rapid descent of late against the US dollar but is now heading back in the other direction. At its worst we heard that it was nudging into the 40s per dollar but is now well back below 28 and expected to recover still more. One of our close financially informed colleagues has reiterated the belief that the Banco Intercontinental (Baninter) scandal lit a blue touch paper but this is being defused by the purchase of a yet bigger bank, Banco Nacional de Crédito (Bancrédito) by the solidly operated León Jimenes Group who among other things successfully control the vast majority of beer sales on the island and of even greater relevance an agreement to support the country from the International Monetary Fund is imminent. For those of you not at all worried by any of this and just interested in a cheap holiday the recent losses of the Dominican peso will just make the beer impossibly avoidable for you at Playa Vista while you at the same time ponder anew the many possibilities for making your adventurous and highly rewarding investments in this up and coming economy!
Cheers!!!

Meanwhile seven years later:
Like all economies that of the Dominican Republic has ebbed and flowed but quite astonishingly, and it is a little known fact that, the government’s bail out of large banks was an exact parallel to the strategy adopted by western economies for their crisis hit banks in 2008. The unerring truth then is that this forerunner, so far, has proven to be an unparalleled success. Our experience over all these years tells us that the Dominican Republic is a surprisingly solid place to invest your assets in fixed term deposit paper investments.

Monday, June 16, 2003
99% of the time, and we mean not just 99% of some kind of limited season but 99% of the 365 days of our planetary year, we do enjoy a tropical paradise here – however the remaining 1% of the time we take great note of the difference, and the other day we were visited by a wind of such gusting strength that we had to close the bar hatches and then the bar to protect ourselves from both the wind and the sand. Anyway it was an early finish to the day’s proceedings rare though that is.
Talking of wind prompts the subject of hurricanes which we experienced with full force in Boca Chica back in 1998 when we were visited by “George” who came with a ferocity previously unknown to us coming from outside the hurricane/typhoon zones of the world. Perhaps more of that story another day.
By the way if you are planning a visit the exchange rate is now so much in your favour you will feel guilty over our bar prices!

Meanwhile seven years later:
It is worth noting that for people in those non-hurricane/typhoon zones the hurricane season actually lasts for half the year and it has just begun!

Friday, June 6, 2003
PARASOLS… is a theme dear to our hearts here on the sun-drenched Caribbean beach. For many strange reasons – all due to the suppliers holding on to their precious parasols with an unheard of passion – we haven’t got too many of them in general. The ones we have got are placed out there on the beach each day and brought in at night. In the interim they have quite a life: they are opened and closed on a regular basis depending on the whim of the customer/visitor for sun or shade at any given moment, which is naturally their prime function, but they do stand out there the whole time taking whatever punishment the weather may dish out. The sun causes severe fading at the very least but it is the wind that tests their true “metal”, so much so that with the occasional serious gust or even mini whirlwind they can go dancing off down the beach cannoning into whatever may be in their path. All this activity is seriously taking its toll and has forced us to carry out some very ingenious and intricate repairs to continually breathe new life into the old guard of “Presidente’ and ‘Coca-Cola’ parasols still standing.
Though we have over the years offered some of the leading drinks companies here full exposure if they would just kindly come up with a reasonable amount of parasols, it has been a difficult ride trying to make these companies see the benefits of donating their precious parasols in return for having a prime publicity location on the beach. Actually we are constantly working at it and were therefore pleasantly surprised the other day to be offered over the bar four very sound and solid umbrellas at a very reasonable price but certainly not advertising anything cool and refreshing that you might buy at the bar, seemingly not even publicizing anything available in this country… but the price was right, the timing was certainly right and as for what they are advertising well… even a short trip our way would of course reveal all!
Cheers!

Meanwhile seven years later:
Parasols come and parasols go – no matter what, stay put in yourself and go with the flow!