March 2, 2025

Last morning in Las Terrenas – following a rewarding few days of discovering fantastic beaches and the waterfall in the area, it is time to travel to the gem of the Dominican Republic, Punta Cana. Well, the gem viewed from the perspective of hyper-commercial beach tourism, but from the perspective of travel and discovery, very much the opposite. But as it goes with traveling, you have to simply soldier on and discover the character of a place, whatever it may amount to.

Now the inevitable rush to eat as much of the food remaining in the fridge as possible. To be fair, I am looking quite skinny after a month of travel, which points to the fact that I have actually managed to not overbuy food – then gorging myself, rather than tossing whatever I don’t need when moving on to the next place. I have to still return the scooter to the rental place and do my final packing, so there is no time to waste.

From the scooter rental place, I return to the home, past the curious children and somewhat skeptical neighborhoods. They are both happy for the amount of tourism that brings money to their community, but also conscious of the incursion into their personal world, the elevated costs they sustain due to the present of tourists and the privileged services that cater to such people as myself – while being largely excluded from the geyser of incoming cash.

The Swiss owner’s local husband drives me to the Astropusa bus station, telling me that the polluting quality of vehicles is not the fault of Dominicans – the vehicle makers sell the people vehicles without emission controls. I find that very hard to believe, as the new cars on the road have such controls, while a lot of the two wheelers and ATVs don’t – perhaps these are old or modified vehicles? In any case, there is no political will to make a change – but in the end it will cost the country, as tourism potential will be curbed by the unattractiveness of a country that is increasingly and distressingly polluted.

Just as I had suspected, coming to the bus station immediately before the scheduled departure also limits me to some of the few remaining seats, and with marginal leg room. Following the bus’s delayed departure, we hurtle along the highway to the airport, then due south toward Santo Domingo, the views somewhat obscured by the local passengers who aren’t really into viewing the countryside, which, in any case, isn’t particularly memorable once we clear the mountainous terrain of the Samaná peninsula.

To get to Punta Cana, I need to return to Santo Domingo – which is where the bus I am on is heading – then take another bus heading to the eastern tip of the island. The trip seems to pass relatively quickly, thanks to the state of the roads, thanks to nodding off, and thanks to the fact that the Dominican republic really isn’t that big. Once we clear the settlements along the coast, the interior of the country is mostly just scrub and forest, punctuated by small-scale agriculture and cattle grazing.

We travel to Santo Domingo Este, ample in size, its size accentuated by the relatively diminutive size of secondary communities in the country. Passengers dismount at a bus station on the east-west highway just north of the airport, then we continue toward town, and not far to the west of the Parque Nacional Los Tres Ojos, I am dropped off on the side of the road, as the stop is apparently the place to catch buses to Punta Cana.

It turns out that the small Expreso Bávaro office across the highway is the place to buy tickets for service to Punta Cana, and again, since the bus is in transit from a station further to the west, I get one of the last seats; standing would not have been so much fun, especially considering the pungent smell of urine on the bus.

The landscape flies by, little visible, given the heavily curtained windows; from the slivers of window I can see through, the sun seems to be shining, the landscape flat and somewhat dry, but this limited perspective is hardly very informative. What the hours of high speed driving on the freeway do reveal is that Punta Cana is far further from Santo Domingo than I would have thought.

Punta Cana refers to both a town and an entire region on the eastern tip of the Dominican republic, a long string of beaches along the coast encircling a host of small communities that include residences for visitors to the region as well as locals who service the tourist industry.

Pulling into the communities near the airport gives an initial view of the gargantuan footprint of Punta Cana, although the sparkling modernity and opulence of the area doesn’t necessarily reflect the more prosaic character of barrios further to the north. Some distance further is my stop, in the Pueblo Bávaro, where I need to walk four blocks to my new apartment. One residential compound upon the next is visible from the sidewalk, each consisting of a gated area with a set of buildings facing a core parking area, each compound with three or four story buildings, featuring attractive embellishments, such as painted bold pastel colours, balconies, and wrought iron grills, the architectural template generic to the entire area – and possibly all of Punta Cana.

The apartment itself is quite astonishing, especially coming from some of the quite lacklustre housing alternatives I have experienced in the country thus far. It is a very spacious two bedroom apartment, one bedroom with a queen-sized bed and ensuite bathroom, the other with two twin beds with external bathroom, both air conditioned, the common area a combined living room and dining room, with separated kitchen space and overhead fans, the apartment’s furnishings appropriate, tasteful, and in perfect shape, with nothing in the place in need of maintenance.

The apartment is spotless and the kitchen well-stocked, with no issues visible whatsoever. The closets have ample hangers, the bathrooms large sinks with toilets that actually flush properly, the fridge works impeccably, and there are electrical plugs throughout the apartment. What a perfect place to end my trip to the Dominican Republic!

What to do in the remaining hours? The area I am staying in is located some distance from the coast – and beaches – far enough away to not justify the cost of the car-hailing app, and then it isn’t even clear where I could actually get to, given the tendency for access to beaches – despite technically being public – being blocked by development or some other pretext.

The secondary road that swings by Pueblo Bávaro runs to the north to what may be downtown Pueblo Bávaro or downtown Punta Cana – the map is exceedingly unclear as to what areas are called, since the same names seem to be used for completely different locales. According to what I read online, the area is the hub of the region, and hence worth spending some time walking around. Rather than worry about how to get there, how about walking there?

The experience is interesting, a trip through an area marked by exurban big box aspirations and concomitant blight, certainly nothing I would have expected in a resort that dreams of dominating Caribbean tourism. One challenge is the evident lack of city planning – visible in much of the country, where brand new developments sit side-by-side with crumbling, abandoned projects.

I imagine that Covid was a big impetus for failure here as everywhere else in the world, retail or hospitality projects financed on a razor’s edge leading to abandonment when the geyser of tourists was quelled. Expansive lots with broken pavement and nothing else, concrete skeletons of multi-story buildings, smart boutique shopping plazas with only a few tenants, most spaces shuttered; enormous, shining car lots and homewares stores and large patches of nothingness.

The traffic is heavy but there are virtually no pedestrians, suggesting this may not be a good place to walk along for security reasons. Redeeming are the occasional eateries that cater mostly to locals, and closer to the Olé Supermarket on the main road adjacent my apartment, there are groups of food stalls that make this area actually one of the most attractive to spend one’s time away from the beach – and yet the area is also entirely disconnected from the beach.

Following the long, tiring walk, arrival in the vaunted core of Pueblo Bavaro should have offered at least a sense of reprieve from the mosaic of retail abandonment on Avenida Barceló, but in fact, it is nothing more than a generic, multi-level mall with no character whatsoever, the anchor tenant Jumbo and the usual American fast food outlets lining the anodyne alleys adjoining the mall. This is not somewhere you would deem for a walking tour. At best, you could leave whatever gargantuan resort you are staying in – that could be a challenge in and of itself – make your way here to buy whatever you need, and then return to your resort.

As for myself, I buy an ample selection of groceries from the huge supermarket, then hail a comfortable InDrive back to my current place of residence in the Pueblo Bávaro …