Sunrise on the Atlantic Ocean
An Early Morning on Bavaro Beach
I’d been thinking about getting up early to see the sunrise and our AirBnB hosts suggested the same thing, so we agreed to do it together. I set an alarm for 6:15am the following morning, but Yuki had stayed up late reading J.K. Rowling the previous night and groggily mumbled “tomorrow…” to me as she pulled me back into bed with a hug. In truth, I was pretty tired too, so I didn’t resist and we both fell asleep again.
Later in the day we made firm plans with our AirBnB hosts and everyone planned on getting up at 6am. Ali was up first and put some loud music on speakers to wake everyone up. Soon after, we trotted down to the beach and made our way down the coast until we found an acceptable sunrise-viewing spot.
I was surprised to see quite a few other tourists up in the morning to watch the sunrise. It took a while to come because there were clouds on the horizon, and then suddenly it was there and we were all snapping photos.
The sun came up and quickly rose into the sky. Some waves crested the beach and we had to scramble back from our seats to keep dry. The scarves we were sitting on weren’t so lucky and got a little wet.
We decided to head back to the house and leave the beach to the workers raking up all the seaweed. As we passed by, I was reminded of the luxury island resort in Belize that I had designed in the past. The Belize island is eroding because the owner had hired a local to rake up all the palm leaves, which disrupted the natural cycle and stopped small plants from growing and retaining the island sands.
By the time we got back to the house, we could feel the heat of the sun on our backs. We had breakfast and then everyone went back to bed for some sleep.
In the evening, Yuki and I went for a walk on the beach. We walked north rather than south this time, and further than we’d been before. Unsurprisingly, we found more resorts lining the shore.
The water, however, was especially beautiful. I don’t think we’ve been anywhere that has water that’s as glossy and smooth as what we saw here. It looked like marble, and we got some fantastic images as the sun set behind us and a golden purple hue formed on the horizon.
A few days later, we left Bavaro for Boca Chica, where we woud have a two-night before flying onward to Miami and departing for a 9-night cruise to the Southern Caribbean.
In total, we spent two weeks in Bavaro. We extended our stay with the Venezuelan family twice. We experienced a lot of “mishaps” there — power outages, water outages, internet outages, propane leakage, and even another AirBnB guest showing up drunk at midnight. Though these are not normal everyday occurrences according to our host, it was humorous to know that we’ve lived through everything that could go wrong in a Dominican home— but in a span of only two weeks. However, we also experienced great things there: we celebrated Stephanie’s birthday (with A LOT of cake), enjoyed grocery shopping with Ali and her mom, and sat together at the dining table every evening to taste all the delicious home-cooked meals. Even when we left, Stephanie and her mom joined us for the bus ride towards Boca Chica, and they would continue onwards to the Santo Domingo airport and fly out to Venezuela. We spent two nights in Boca Chica and then flew on to Miami for our 9-night Southern Caribbean cruise. More on that in the next post…
