March 4, 2025

A leisurely breakfast in my new-found sanctuary in Punta Cana, although the challenges of the day are never far from my mind. While the quality of the place to stay, the ability to buy groceries, and even decent and affordable places to eat out are all in order, which beaches I can visit – and just as importantly how – preoccupies me. I am thinking of visiting Punta Cana beach, just to the east of Punta Cana town, but from the mixed messaging I see online, the entire area may be gated, although I can’t seem to get any clear information.

To hail a gua gua heading north to Playa Cortecito, I can walk the few blocks through my quiet planned residential community to Avenida Barceló, but to find a gua gua heading to the south, I need to make my way to the Cruce de Veron, the major intersection in the area. The immediate area of my apartment complex seems pleasant, orderly, and dignified enough, but straying a few blocks to the side reveals a far more run-down and less-inviting side, a perennial characteristic of Punta Cana – where the big money stops, the slums begin.

The idea of walking to the Cruce de Veron seems reasonable enough, considering what appears to be a relatively innocuous distance on the map, but in reality, it is much further away than I had expected, and trudging along the broken-down sidewalk, the scruffy, refuse-strewn lots, run-down buildings and heavy, noxious fume-spewing vehicles in the baking heat is less than ideal.

Waiting for the gua gua by the roadside at the cruce, I am at least thankful to be in what appears to be a genuine Dominican environment, far from glamorous, but with shops catering to locals selling produce, furniture, simple eateries, and within my immediate reach, two good empanada kiosks.

I wait patiently for the vehicle to Punta Cana, board, and we proceed toward the airport, the rough and tumble mix of housing and shops en route both lacking in any overarching elegance but also speaking of a genuine living community. Closer the airport, the local flavour abates, the land empties of any development, except for the town of Punta Cana, that from the perspective of the broad boulevard running alongside, seems to include formal businesses and services that would cater to wealthy businesspeople and tourists.

We pull into the airport, with all the appearances of a bucolic facility where the fantasy of escaping to a tropical paradise begins – and ends – and is entirely sanitized of the actualities of the population itself. The gua gua continues along the broad boulevard to an arch with security office, where I am commandeered to disembark. Why? The bus apparently continues into the resort complex, but can only be used by employees, guests, or otherwise authorized individuals. But then how do I get to the beach? There is apparently an office at the airport that issues permissions to tourists seeking to visit this beach – I will have to return to the airport when the bus returns to find out more.

It only gets better. I reluctantly wait for the gua gua to return to the airport on the far side of the boulevard, and at the airport, embark on a pointless search for an office or agency of any sort available to help tourists gain access to the local beaches. Since the airport evidently caters only to tourists that stay in all-inclusive resorts whose experience is entirely gated, there is no need for any supporting services at the airport, as I can attest to based on the utterly useless assistance I get at the airport, various security and airline personnel having absolutely no idea how to help with what should seem like a patently simple request.

Finally, I am directed to a security gate on another boulevard running alongside Punta Cana town that is responsible for issuing permits to visit the beach. It’s not so far, and I can walk there – but when I finally arrive at the modern office that evidently represents a luxury resort encompassing the general area, I am told that I can only visit the beach subject to a U.S. $50 consumption fee at the resort restaurant.

As a matter of principle, I wouldn’t go – despite the fact that the resort may offer an exquisite environment around the beach, the reality is that the beach is public, and these resorts have conspired to create developments that effectively exclude the public from accessing the beaches around which their resorts are built, an essential element of how large commercial tourist enterprises destroy the authenticity and integrity of local cultures. For the kind of traveling I do, the experience elicits nothing but revulsion, although for the package tourist, all of this would be effectively invisible.

Resignedly, I walk back to the airport; at least the 20 minute walk is along a quiet, greenery-lined boulevard. I join the rank of employees waiting for the gua gua to the Cruce de Veron, and soon am off again. At the Cruce I jump onto the next gua gua, although I have to stand much of the way to Play Bávaro. Or perhaps I should see if the gua gua goes as far as Playa Arena Gorda. The conductor acknowledges the destination – so at least this part of the afternoon will be a win.

The bus passes the entrance to Playa Bávaro, then continues a distance to the north before turning westward along the busy local road, continuously stopping and starting until reaching the freeway – then continuing into Bávaro town, and not far in, we are instructed to disembark.

So – this is the final stop? How is it that the conductor told me that he goes to Playa Arena Gorda? Oh no, they tell me, I’ll have to take a taxi to get there. I am absolutely furious – and lose any notion of decorum. How is it that you find fit to lie to tourists for your momentary convenience and profit, irrespective of the hassle you put them through? I rave and rant – but at the end of the day, should never have come to this regrettable hellhole.

The tuktuk drivers at the stop petition my business but I am furious. I calm down somewhat, subjecting them to my views of this place, but none of it surprises them – they live here, they are from here, and have seen their own patrimony pulled from underneath their feet and sold off, leaving them as impotent and impoverished vassals while the much better connected have made off with the spoils. A continuous reminder of how disgusting and exploitative big box tourism is.

Ironically, returning towards the coast on foot via the Avenida España is interesting, the road ostensibly catering to locals more than foreigners, what with the panoply of comfortable but unassuming restaurants with outdoor terraces, empanada kiosks, drinking establishments, and stores catering to more prosaic needs. But with the heavy traffic lumbering by and vehicles spewing an incessant cloud of toxic fumes, I fail to see the appeal – although the same could be said for much of the country.

Far from the bucolic idyll that the marketing brochures for Punta Cana portray, here the blank faces and grimaces of the Haitians jammed into the truck beds prevail, the people who provide the invisible backbone for the chimera of megaresorts, clinging desperately to their life belongings.

The tuktuks on the street remind me of India, providing an inexpensive transportation variant, in stark contrast to the luxury coaches that try to navigate through the quagmire of traffic between the airport and some far-flung resort. But on the street, despite the travails of daily life, the Dominicans are always cheery and quick to embrace the positive.

Whatever small amount of optimism I had garnered on the walk toward the beach dissipates when I find out I can’t continue directly east, as the through road is blocked by a resort, and the road the overweight warden directs me to is blocked as well, forcing me to trek southward along the Avenida Francia the entire distance until it finally arcs toward the coast and leads toward the entrance to Playa Bávaro. Really – what an incredible, trenchant and ridiculous waste of time this has all been. Of all the experiences I have had visiting beach environments larger and smaller, this has to be the most outlandishly regrettable.

Finally, through the thick of traffic, exhaust fumes, constant stopping and starting, I arrive into the haven of tawdry tourist shops, wend my way through the seedy environs, and finally, am on the beach – and could easily have saved myself several hours had I known about the debacle that would face me attempting to get to the beach next to Punta Cana town. And that’s another thing that I find unacceptable about this place – there is no publicly available information informing visitors of the beaches you can actually visit, and in the vicinity of the beaches, signs directing visitors to the beach entrances.

The beach is almost an afterthought to this dreadful day, the late afternoon now casting long shadows over the strip of sand at the Playa Bávaro, the once emerald waters now a deeper blue, the pale clouds and windswept crowns of the Royal palms tinged in darkness. But being able to spend time on the beach, lie on the sand and gaze out over the relaxing waters, the gentle waves lapping on the shore, the beach chairs flanking the edges of the resorts now virtually abandoned for the evening, only a few heads still bobbing in the water, the parasailers gone for the day, all makes me quickly forget about the travails I sustained earlier on in the day.

As dusk approaches, the stray dogs appear, chasing aggressively after random workers and vendors traipsing up and down the shoreline, another aspect of the place that makes me shake my head in frustration …