Time flies, whether you’re having fun or not. It has been a whole year since I was on vacation, and there is no sign of the next one yet.
The past year has been filled with all kinds of events, each of them could warrant another vacation, but visibly, that’s not in the stars right now. In some cases, I felt like those decapitated palm trees.
A vacation on a tropical island is what everyone always dreams about. Even more, we were told in school that that was the best way to have a vacation, ignoring all those who couldn’t go anywhere but some 50km away on a campground.
Those campgrounds in the Netherlands were good, but it was always a little sting to me when classmates came back from faraway Spain with a suntan and tons of stories, while my stories were that I played in the sandbox.
View over the Atlantic Ocean
I’m not complaining, but I still remember the feeling of not going anywhere.
Fast forward to the last 20 years, and despite trips to Holland and Ukraine, none of those trips were vacations in the proper use of the term. They were always dedicated to family and friends, funerals, problems to solve and documents to obtain.
Historical part of Puerto Plata
For some, the fact of being “home” is vacation enough, but for me, not so much. Last year, we decided on a whim to go to the Dominican Republic. It took us exactly 2 weeks to prepare, pay and fly. That was just the way I like it.
Downtown Puerto Plata
It’s “fun” to prepare for a vacation for months before it happens, like my parents always did; they loved talking about what to see and where to see it. My fun was always to look out, take pictures and see what came next.
Shaded from the sun
Today, that mindset hasn’t changed much. I love to prepare for a vacation, but not for months on end. A few weeks tops, and then I should be there 
. And this time I was ready to take a shit load of pictures.
Descent to the beach
Since this trip was an “all-inclusive” type of trip, we had only a minimal idea of what was “on tap” for this, so we let the professionals guide us wherever possible. For example, I had no idea what the trip from the above picture would entail.
Going snorkelling
It led to the above boat, so a fine trip it promised to be. It was only when we departed for the snorkeling expedition that the main attraction of the boat was not the tropical fish we were promised, but a “party” with music at its loudest and a beat that could only be tolerated by diving a few feet below the waterline.
Roadside fruits
But I still had a great time in the water. Another trip (less noisy this time) brought us to another part of the island. The interesting part during the driving was what was on the side of the road. I cannot imagine that anywhere in Canada or Europe, this kind of selling of fresh fruits and veggies would be allowed .
Retired sugarcane hauler
But that’s the kind of thing I love to see. Nowadays it becomes a bit bland to go to the stores. Market stalls are hardly ever where you need them to be, let alone having them sell what you want. Markets must be in a fixed spot, clean, free of insects, paying the appropriate taxes (very important!!!), etc. All of that makes it dull, the colour is kind of gone from that.
The resort next door
Going to a very different place and culture brings back some memories of freedom for me. A freedom that is no longer in our current lives in the modern world. It’s that craving for “fewer rules” that now makes me want to go back to the tropics, be it the Dominican Republic or anywhere else.
Puerto Plata from Mount Isabel de Torres
As for that “all-inclusive”, I think that if we go enough to the same or similar areas, we will want to go out on our own, but for that I’ll need to learn the language of the land first. The past year has been occupied in a small part by learning new languages.
Just in case.
Until next time…