GRACIAS DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

DAY 1 TWO CAPITAL CITIES 

Part I 

Brave New World 

I never traveled outside of the country as a child. I had a few chances to go to Mexico but my mom was convinced that if I set one single toe over the border I would be instantly kidnapped and sold into sex slavery.
So of course, as soon as I turned 18 and graduated high school I flew straight to Puerto Vallarta with several thousand other over privileged suburban teenagers and spent a week on a drunken binge at bars geared towards making white American tourists feel right at home. The most authentic foreign experience I had was when some Mexican children tried to sell me chiclets outside the airport. Still, I felt victorious when I returned home without a single kidnapping scare.
After having thus established my extreme travel savvy, independence, and bravery, other than a couple of brief forays into Canada, I didn't feel the need to leave the country again until ten years later, when I was sent on a business trip to China.
Going to China was like entering another world. Everything about it was different than anything I had ever known. The people, the food, the buildings, the language, even the air. The suffering I saw, and the level of poverty was astounding. You can't truly realize the conditions people are capable of living in until you see it with your own eyes. And then you see that they are happy. That they are able to survive and even thrive. When I came back from China I was a changed person. I looked at the world with different eyes. And I was desperately eager to immediately travel again.
When my friend Kimberly asked me to go on a trip with her I jumped at the chance. We decided on the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
At the airport waiting for our flight my youngest sister calls me. She sounds on the verge of tears.
"Dayna, I don't want you to go! I don't think it's safe! What if you get kidnapped??" she wails.
"Have you been talking to Mom?" I demand. "Listen, no one is going to kidnap me! I am a brown belt second degree in karate! I have enormous teeth for biting! I am not afraid to fight dirty and I can scream really loud! Plus---"
She cuts me off before I can finish listing all the ways why it would be nearly impossible to kidnap me. "No, I just watched the movie Taken!" she says. "And now I am really scared for you."
I assure her I will be fine and we hang up. Two seconds later my middle sister calls me.
"Dayna! Mom said you might be going to Haiti? You are NOT going there! Do you know how dangerous it is? There are literally no laws there. I am worried enough about you in the DR but I forbid you to go to Haiti. I absolutely forbid it!"
"You can't forbid me!" I exclaim. "You're my younger sister. You have no say in the matter. I'm going to Haiti."
"I am not fucking kidding Dayna. You are not going to Haiti."
I can see this conversation is going no where so I tell her we are flying into the Dominican and will probably not make it into Haiti. After a few more threats we say our I love you's and hang up.
Instantly my phone rings again. Crap, it is my mom.
"I know you are a grown woman." she starts out with. "But I am still your mother and I just want you to be really careful! Don't leave your hotel at night. Don't walk anywhere ever! Don't eat anything weird! Don't talk to any strangers!"
I appease her by falsely agreeing to these impossible demands, say my good byes, and board the plane.
Kimberly and I are taking a red eye to Puerto Rico where we have a 12 hour layover, and then flying on to Santo Domingo, the capital of Dominican Republic. I hate red eyes because I can never sleep on planes.
I pull my book out and settle in for take off. I turn to Kimberly to comment on what a long night this is going to be and discover she is already fast asleep, head crammed against the window, snoring softly.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me." I mutter.
Ten tediously long hours later we land in San Juan, Puerto Rico and I have to physically shake Kimberly awake. She yawns and stretches luxuriously.
"We're here already?" she asks sleepily.
I have to restrain myself from slapping her.
Because we have 12 hours to kill Kimberly wants to leave the airport and explore San Juan, she has been here once before and says the old part of town is the best.
I feel oddly nervous to leave the relative safety of the airport.
"Are you sure?" I ask her. "Maybe its better to just stay here until our flight."
She looks at me like I am a moron. "I'm not staying in the airport for 12 hours, you can if you want."
She heads out of the airport and I quickly tag along behind.
We get in a cab headed to Old San Juan. The driver asks us where we are staying and how long we will be in Puerto Rico. When we tell him we are going on to Dominican he is instantly concerned.
"No!" He says. "Dominican is very dangerous for American women, especially two blond women. No, you better just stay here. No one even speaks English there!"
I feel a tinge of alarm. What if my family is right? What if I am going to some dangerous place? I sneak a glimpse at Kimberly to see if she looks scared. She just looks insulted.
"What makes you think we don't speak Spanish?" she snaps. Although I am darker than her, Kimberly is actually half Mexican and speaks a decent amount of Spanish.
Her and the cab driver start speaking back and forth in Spanish to each other and I am stuck grinning like an idiot whenever they burst into laughter, and occasionally saying "Si" when the cab driver directs  a question my way. God only knows what I am agreeing to.
We spend the day roaming the charming cobblestone streets of Old San Juan. The buildings are beautiful pastel colors with intricate rod iron railings covering windows and balconies. This is the clean, well preserved, tourist friendly section of the capitol.
We eat an incredible meal of scrambled eggs with spicy peppers, tomatoes, onions, and cilantro and a french press of fragrantly strong, fresh dark coffee at a charming little cafe.
We finally get back to the airport and take a seat to wait for our flight to Dominican. Not only does Kimberly end up sleeping the entire one hour flight there, but she falls asleep in her chair at the airport and I have to wake her up for boarding. I have surpassed 48 full hours with no sleep and am starting to find her ease at falling and staying asleep pretty god damn annoying.

Part II
I'm Home

I love Santo Domingo instantly and irreversibly. As soon as I leave the airport the soft humid air wraps me in a warm welcoming embrace. The smell of the nearby salty sea and wet pavement from a recent rain, the sound of Spanish being shouted and horns honking, the sight of the almost painfully blue sky, all combine to be completely foreign to me and yet utterly, comfortingly familiar at the same time. I feel as if I have just arrived home, as if this was where I've always been meant to be.
Kimberly and I are staying in the Zona Colonial district of the capitol city and have arranged for a driver from our hotel to pick us up at the airport. As soon as we start driving he begins talking away to us. He speaks no English so it is up to Kimberly to listen and respond to what he is saying. She manages to do this for the first five minutes of the drive, at which point she falls soundly asleep against her travel pillow. I've got to get me one of those.
I'm left gamely nodding my head at him whenever he makes eye contact with me in the rearview mirror, or points something out through the window. The more I see of the city, the more deeply I fall in love with it. The ocean is a stunningly gorgeous shade of clear turquoise. Huge green tropical plants sprout up everywhere, leaves still sparkling from what must have been a very recent rain. The streets are busy with cars and people, wonderfully loud with music and voices and laughter. From the beach comes the enticing aroma of BBQ'd meat and I realize how starving I am.
Our hotel is a 300 year old building that has served as everything from a sanitarium, to most recently a convent. It is absolutely stunning. High, white washed stone walls face the street and we enter a peaceful courtyard through a huge arched wooden door. We walk through a tropical paradise of secluded palm fronds to reach our peacefully beautiful room of terra cotta tile and simple rod iron beds.
We are paying less than $80 for the room and we get a free breakfast. We are both amazed at how nice, tasteful, and serene it is.
We walk the streets for several blocks looking for a row of restaurants Kimberly had read about. We walk through shady squares where old men play dominoes and read papers under majestic old trees. Dogs run happily through the streets, frolicking and playing with each other. Beautiful Latin women push adorable little babies in strollers.
The row of restaurants lines an enormous, important looking square. There are political statues and monuments, and stairs arranged like bleachers before a stage. At the moment it is completely deserted other than for the dozens of pigeons loitering around.
The restaurants are all virtually deserted too. There about ten of them and someone runs out of each of them to beg us to stay and eat. It is a weird feeling to be the only customers in sight and this feeling increases when we choose a pizza place. The hostess takes us throughout the three story building showing us each and every table to ensure we get our top choice.
What we really want is to sit outside, and although she seems reluctant she finally lets us.
We face the huge square and watch the sun slowly set over the silent statues as we sip our first taste of the local beer, Presidente. The beer is light, refreshing, and completely smooth and delicious. We have several by the time our pizza arrives. The crust is thin and crispy, the cheese tangy, and when we ask for hot sauce we are given a bottle of olive oil with a multitude of peppers floating in it. It is flavorful, spicy, and like nothing I've ever tasted before. Kimberly and I can't get enough of it.
Just as we are finishing up a torrential downpour starts with no warning. One minute the skies are clear and pocketed with stars, the next we are instantly soaked with rain. Maybe this is why the hostess didn't  want us sitting outside....
The servers quickly rush us and our remaining pizza and beer inside where we stand dripping wet, unsure what to do. They are trying to set up a table for us when the lights go out. The entire street goes pitch black. Kimberly and I stand in the impenetrable dark for what seems a lifetime, unable to see a single thing, until someone finally lights a candle. What's left of our pizza is ruined so we just drink our beer and pay our bill. It is an eerie feeling, being somewhere totally unknown, unable to see anything except the small circle of light from the candle, listening to the rain absolutely belting against the roof and the streets.
When we leave the building to grab a cab the rain is like no rain I have ever felt. It is the same as being underwater. Water fills my nose and my mouth, soaks every single part of me, is already past ankle high in the streets. It is both terrifying and totally exciting at the same time. Kimberly and I start laughing somewhat hysterically at each other.
I have no idea how the driver can see anything on our cab ride home, the windshield wipers don't stand a chance against the speed of the rain. Somehow we make it safely and feel our way up to our room in the slippery dark.
I lay wide awake on my bed, listening to the deafening sound of the rain, my heart beating in exhilaration at being in a foreign land, in the middle of a city wide blackout, in a storm like none I could ever have imagined. I have never felt more adventurous in my life. I try to tell this to Kimberly but her only response is soft snores. Of course. She is already asleep.