February 23, 2025

My first night in Puerto Plata passes remarkably well, a sound sleep in a perfectly air conditioned room, with no noise of any sort. A solid breakfast, thanks to the trappings of the Sirena Hypermarket on the edge of town, Yoplait soursop liquid yoghurt (not very good), bread rolls, jam that amounts to nothing more than flavoured syrup, a juice nectar that amounts to a sugary solution with some vague flavouring, a banana, an orange, and bacon and eggs. The last part was good, the first part definitely not.

Today is a beach day, and given the plethora of sandy strips for which the Puerto Plata area is famous, how about starting with the closest beach, Playa Acapulco, and walking in the direction of Sosúa to the east. Looking at the map, this would include Puerto Plata, Cosita Rica, Long, and Costa Dorada beaches.

To traverse all the beaches, I would have to walk continuously and not spend too much time on any particular beach, but oh well – I’ll see how I feel. Perhaps because it is Sunday, the Uber is a problem, the first one canceling after accepting the ride, the next one coming from too far away. I’ll walk – it’s hardly such a struggle, especially considering that the walk takes me through the brightly-painted abodes that fringe the old town.

The waterfront en route to La Sirena is hardly that enticing, but I suppose it’s all relative – there is sand, a screen of trees separating the shore from the main road, and there are shallows in the water. Much of the coastline running north looks similar, as I am about to see, although here there is very little separating the beach from the highway.

Despite the preponderance of seaweed and random debris, Playa Acapulco provides a suitable introduction to the delights of the beaches along the north coast. It isn’t particularly spectacular, and even though it runs alongside the sprawling town of Puerto Plata and its adjunct communes, the beach – as most of the successive ones to the north – is largely isolated, with at most a few people on any individual beach.

The water conditions are not bad for swimming, given that the water is shallow and the seabed drops off gradually, given the tepid wave action. The only downside may be the thick beds of seaweed in the water, although closer to the shore, the pale green water indicates clear water and a sandy, relatively shallow bottom.

Besides there being virtually no people on the beaches, never mind foreigners, there are also no commercial developments. Walking along the beach, the highway and urban development on the far side is no longer visible, and closer to the beach, I see nothing but forest and scrub. It may not be that well tended, what with traces of garbage everywhere, but overall, the environment seems relatively pristine, removed from the incursions of development. Then again, there are probably better beaches to attract tourists to, and the general environment may just suffer from an overabundance of beaches.

Now the big decision is where to lay down my hat, suntan, and go into the water. There is so much choice! What a challenge to have! The seaweed debris lining the sandy beaches is daunting, an artifact of the sargassum super bloom the Caribbean is facing this season, but it is already dry and doesn’t smell. The waters lapping the shore are often superlative, and the thick clouds of the morning have now cleared to reveal a ceramic blue sky with only the occasional tendril of white cotton batting.

By Playa Cosita Rica, I still see no development other than a few beachside restaurants, which already shows a shocking level of development relative to the completely undeveloped beaches closer to Puerto Plata. Along the main road, there are more establishments, open-facing, somewhat run-down, rustic Caribbean-style eateries, exactly what you would expect here.

A smattering of people indulges themselves in American and Dominican food, greasy, wholesome, and not particularly expensive, although authentic. From the rear of the terrace of one, with a great view of the beach, I enjoy a great poutine, and am also surprised by the number of older Caucasian men gathered at the tables. The owner of the place is French-Canadian – that explains a lot!

On this next beach, few people are visible, a man walking his dog in the distance, and a few stragglers. The beach is lined with strips of seaweed debris deposited according to the highest recent tides, now decaying in the intense sunlight. Notable here, however, is the amount of refuse: earlier, you could see the occasional bottle lying in the mangroves, but the carpet of primarily plastic bottles now litters the upper sections of the beach. The amount of litter gets worse as I trudge further along; the length of the beach ends, then arcs to the right into a small cove where continuing doesn’t seem quite obvious, given how close the mangroves hug the water.

The last big swath of sand is Long Beach, which extends quite some distance in both directions, and is in parts quite deep. The bucolic swath of sand is interrupted by a few hospitality establishments with neat rows of cushioned deck chairs and attendants, but there is so much open sand here, simply throwing a towel onto the sand close to the water – but above the water line – seems much more inviting. Around me, the shallows of the sea, the shallow waves crawling toward the shore, so small you can barely hear them break, the sand extending on both sides to the horizon, and the broad canopy of blue above me.

A man who had been walking his dog ahead of me returns in my direction, and when asked about the passage to the next beach, tells me you can walk there, and he can point me in the right direction, but I also need to be careful in this section, as people have gotten mugged here. My mind turns to the few individuals I have seen on the beach, in particular, the young man with the low riding shorts who seemed to maintain a consistent distance behind me, slowing down when I slowed down, and stopping altogether when I stopped to look back. It dawns on me that perhaps I shouldn’t be so naive simply wandering alone in the area …

He offers to accompany me to the beginnings of the Costa Dorada beach; the entire beach is now swamped with litter, the extent of which is somewhat unbelievable, considering that this is supposed to be a tourist zone. He tells me that the refuse around us comes from upriver, not from the sea, from people who simply find it easier to toss their garbage into the environment, rather than having it properly disposed of.

Ironically, the means to process garbage properly are universal on the island, and it is completely unclear to him as to why people would not make the basic effort to do so. His typically sunny Dominican disposition is somewhat disquieted by the trenchant indifference of so many people; worse, he used to work in the hotel on the far beach (he points it out to me), so takes particular responsibility for what goes on here. Given what has taken place in this area, he takes it as a personal responsibility to ensure that tourists passing through here are safe.

The last section of beach before reaching the Costa Dorada may be doable, but it requires waiting for the right moment to transit around low-lying mangrove trees to avoid getting my shoes wet. I could take them off, but I wrongly calculate that I should be able to avoid getting wet – and despite my best efforts, my shoes get drenched in wet sand and salt water. I try clambering over small embankments or through the dry branches of these trees that comprise the healthy canopy of any tropical coastal littoral, but in vain. One step forward for the degradation of my superb walking shoes.

A broad arc of tended beach defines the Costa Dorada, the handful of foreigners wandering along the beach or reclining in the array of beach chairs probably entirely oblivious of the realities of the waterfront immediately to their west. But there are also attendants on hand, presumably to remain vigilant as to the needs of guests, which would make sense, considering what this complex of modern but relatively unassuming low-rise buildings commands.

This is the first development of any sort I have seen along the beach, coming from the town of Puerto Plata, and is far larger than the narrow beachfront footprint would suggest, building upon building sitting on albeit reasonably landscaped land, reaching all the way back to the north coastal highway. It’s all the same to me – I never stay in this kind of place, and all that matters to me is that the beach itself remains public, which seems to be the case in the Dominican Republic, although I’m not sure it’s universally true.

The day is waning, and despite having found the last sunlit strip on the beach, the colour of the sea has shifted from its pungent aquamarine and turquoise tones to a sheet of gunmetal blue-grey. The beach is now empty of people – where do they all go to, given that there is nothing else to do here? Placards advertise various sea-based sports, such as kite surfing and diving, but I have seen no evidence of anyone engaging in these sports from my walk along the beaches, perhaps because the area towards the town of Puerto Plata is entirely bereft of foreign tourists.

A bus is parked at the entrance, full of employees waiting to be brought back to their homes. According to them, the carnival procession that I was told earlier on would be happening this afternoon is definitely not happening – it’s taking place in March, and today, there was a related gathering in the town, but it took place in the afternoon, when I was heading to the beaches. It’s definitely over now! I will have to seek alternate entertainment, and that will have to be the Jumbo Hypermarket not far away.

Once inside the Jumbo, the delights of navigating the enormous sprawl of clothing, household and food items, not that I had the intention of buying very much. Intent of finding out how much the Parma ham on sale is, I stumble upon the Anglo-American Trump supporter at the cash who does his best to avoid me, but his companion does not, yelling at me that no matter how inexpensive the pre-packaged meat is, it will be less expensive when purchased by weight from the deli counter, and for that matter, it was a fraction of the cost ten years ago!