A vacation

I returned Tuesday afternoon from a week at a very beautiful resort near Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. As a gift from a friend who is a member of the resort, we had our own, incredibly beautiful villa with its own swimming pool on a hill overlooking the Caribbean. The layout was such that no other villas or buildings were visible from our patio and pool. It was a though our villa was suspended in the air, open to the sky and the sea.

I spent most of my time swimming, when I wasn’t eating and drinking at the resort’s multiple restaurants, buffets, bars, and ocean beaches (all food and drink was included in a relatively inexpensive per diem fee), and tooling around the vast paradisal resort complex in the golf cart that came with the villa. Each villa at this resort has its own swimming pool, and there are many larger, common swimming pools as well. I swam in many of them, but in the end came to favor my own.

I had not had real exercise since my health problem and treatment began two years ago. Since I have difficulty walking as a result of the treatment, swimming is the perfect physical activity for me. Also, I have not driven a car since I became ill. With the golf cart, I became a driver again.

- end of initial entry -

Kidist Paulos Asrat writes:

It’s funny, that’s just the kind of vacation I thought you would have, at a beautiful paradise island. And you had to travel so far to find an ideal exercise. Swimming is really the best. It’s the only sport I can do with enjoyment and with results (how can people go jogging!?).

LA replies:

It was just the kind of vacation I had been thinking of. I’m not physically up to being a tourist, moving around and doing things. I wanted to go to a place that was a nice place where I didn’t have to do anything and I could just be. And this was it.

Leonard K. writes:

I’m glad to hear about your wonderful vacation, but I find it ironic that you spent it in the Caribbean. A quick search of VFR for Caribbean yielded these entry titles:

Another savage attack on whites in Caribbean island paradise

The latest vacationing white person attacked in Caribbean paradise

Honeymooning British couple murdered in their hotel cabin on black Caribbean island

Another white murdered in the Caribbean

LA replies:

Before I went, I verified that the resort conformed to VFR’s specifications for security in tropical vacation places. It is surrounded by fences, with everyone’s ingress and egress through gates where they are checked by security personnel, and also there were security men on the street outside our villa at night.

Also, VFR’s security specifications apply to black tropical paradises. While the Dominican people have a large black genetic component, they are a racially mixed people and for the most part not black per se.

LA continues:

Prior to traveling I wrote to the friend who was giving me this vacation, asking him:

“I think you may have told me about this before, but I forget. What is the security situation at the resort? What is the nature of the perimeter?”

He found my question, “What is the nature of the perimeter?”, laugh-out-loud funny, because, as he explained, “When I see the word perimeter, I think of barbed wire fences at a prison or concentration camp.”

Then he went on to assure me:

“The place is a fortress. One thing they can not have is an incident which would give them bad publicity. It would be fatal to their business and future. The entire town depends on the money coming into that place and the jobs it creates. You’ll be as snug as a bug in a rug.”

An Indian living in the West writes:

I am glad you finally went to the Caribbean!

There are nice beaches in India and other parts of Asia but nothing beats the Caribbean for sheer tropical beauty (or ever will). As I had written once before, there is a way to enjoy the sheer beauty of the Caribbean in great comfort without putting oneself at risk. I am delighted that you chose to go. There are very few excursions that can bring such a feeling of relaxation in this stressful, hectic world we live in like a two week holiday in a tropical paradise resort in the Caribbean. [LA replies: Well I had just under a week. If I go again, I’ll aim for two.]

Apart from Dominican, there is also Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados and Cuba (currently off limits for Americans) that are truly worth seeing. Hopefully some day Castro will be finally history and Americans will be able to see Havana again. It has the oldest and some of the most beautiful Catholic churches in the Western hemisphere and it is an experience in itself.

LA writes:

I should add that the weather was very mild. Because this was May, and no longer the peak of the season, we had expected the weather to be very hot and perhaps somewhat uncomfortable. But it was genial and temperate. Whether the sun was shining in a brilliantly blue sky, or there were clouds and light rain, it was always pleasant. On our last morning there it got really hot for the first time.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 10, 2012 08:18 AM | Send