DR: Beach resort
By EmilyRuskamp. Filed in Uncategorized |
This weekend a group of us girls went to Luperon to an all-inclusive beach resort. Luperon is off the main area of beach resorts in Puerto Plata, so we hoped that it would be a little smaller and less of your typical resort, but we were wrong. When we arrived we were so excited–pay our 40 bucks and then have free food, free drinks, free beach. It seemed almost too good to be true. And for the first few hours, which we spent laying out on the beach, it was absolutely amazing. It was definitely a welcome escape from school.
But then we got a deeper taste of the resort, which is the reason I will probably never go back. As we walked by the west pool on the way to our room, there were about five men gathered around a small table, yelling and cheering at their friend, who was going through a series of stations (swimming across the pool, doing jumping jacks, five push ups, etc.). A resort employee was encouraging him to go faster over a loudspeaker. The last station was to chug a glass of beer, and the whole event was timed.
At point point we spent a few minutes in the pool and talked to three girls from Liverpool. As one of their friends was swimming over to us, she was talking loudly with a resort employee, who was talking in Spanish.
“I’m not from France. I’m from En-gland. Where we speak En-glish,” she was saying. He replied that she’s in the Dominican Republic, where they speak Spanish, and she gave an extremely rude response and said she wasn’t even coming back here.
I don’t want to stereotype all resort-goers based on these two and a few other experiences. There just seems to be a culture of drinking, getting wild, letting loose, and being waited on hand and foot. Maybe it’s just not my style, but I don’t like being lumped into that category.
But Saturday night we went down to the beach and there was hardly anyone down there, and it made every moment worth it. There’s something about the ocean that’s so cliche, yet when you’re right there watching the waves, listening to them hit the shore, and smelling the salt you realize it’s all completely true. It’s beyond my comprehension how something can be so simple… a wave comes in, and goes back out, and another comes in, and goes back out… yet so complex at the same time. Staring out at the ocean can become philosophical, emotional, spiritual, overwhelming, playful, romantic, relaxing… really anything you want it to be. Sitting there I felt like if I stayed long enough, I would probably think about almost every aspect of my life in some way, at some point.
I could never do justice for the ocean. Still, looking back, I feel somewhat ashamed for being at that resort, but at the same time grateful for the experience. And it was nice to know that even the resorts aren’t out of reach of the massive power outages that happen regularly in this country, as we were without power Saturday night for at least 3-4 hours.
By Emily Ruskamp