The Beach

In 2008, my mother and I traveled to Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. One of my Spanish cousins was getting married on the island and as an added bonus, we would see many of my relatives who were flying in from Spain.

The wedding didn’t quite go off as planned. We, the guests, arrived at the designated stretch of beach several minutes early and then waited for the bride. We found out later that her family arrived at the last possible moment and caused all the problems (the bride herself is a lovely woman).

Those of us who had arrived on time chatted and eyed the sky nervously. It was hurricane season and the clouds seemed to be roiling and darkening just over our heads. The ceremony should have started at 4:30, and at 5:15, the wind picked up and the first raindrops fell.

Frantically, we all ran for a nearby cottage and took shelter under the eaves as the rain fell harder and harder. And just as the bride appeared (at 5:30), the black clouds opened and flung sheets of driving rain on the scattered wedding party.

But, dutifully, we guests scurried back to where the Justice of the Peace was wiping her sodden papers with a resort towel and yelling over the howling wind. Someone held a palm frond over the drenched couple as they leaned in, trying to determine when they were supposed to respond (or when they were actually married).

Wine glasses flew off of tables, bouquets went tumbling, waves crashed angrily on the beach, and palm trees swayed alarmingly. Many of the guests grasped plastic chairs and held them over their heads upside down to act as a semblance of shelter.

We all looked as though we had jumped into the ocean in our wedding finery.

The Justice of the Peace screamed for the witness to come forward but nobody heard her so my Aunt Esperanza leaned in and signed where she was told. The minute she dropped the pen, we guests ran for the stone steps that led back to the resort.

Unfortunately, water was pouring down the steps like a waterfall. Someone yelled to save the elderly among us and a hasty human pulley system was assembled to hoist the old people up the gushing stairs.

Once “Operation Save the Decrepit” was complete, the rest of us stumbled back to the resort, soaked and muddy, and retreated to our rooms to dry off and start the dressing process all over again.

And although I was certain nothing else could go wrong that night, I was wrong.

After the evening festivities, which involved a lot of dramatic rehashing of our horrific afternoon (how many dead??), I returned to my room to discover that the locking mechanism on the patio door was not working correctly. My mother and I had a room on the ground floor and I didn’t relish spending the night with the patio door unlocked.

I called the front desk and asked the woman to send someone to fix the latch.

Well, imagine my shock when I opened the door to find a grim-faced soldier in full military garb standing there clutching a large rifle! Clearly, he was leaving to fight a war as soon as he fixed the latch on my patio door.

With a grunt, he dropped (!) the rifle on my bed and went to inspect the patio door. I stood by uncertainly, wondering who posed the greater threat, my unknown intruder or this scowling mercenary.

But, amazingly, he rigged the door so it wouldn’t open, scooped up his rifle, and left. He never said a word.

The next morning, my mother and I decided we could use a brief respite from the interactions of the family and hired a driver to take us to “La Isabella,” which is the site of the first Spanish fort on the island.

Columbus and his crew stopped in that area in 1492, and he left his men so they could build a Spanish fort.

He would return a year later to find a cemetery full of Spaniards.

But that sunny morning, my mother and I rode along in a clunky little van, exclaiming over the quaint villages we saw along the way. We saw an awful lot of locals sitting in plastic chairs outside of dilapidated buildings, clearly not in a hurry to do anything else (like picking up the garbage that lay everywhere). We didn’t see any cars; only donkeys, horses, and bicycles.

A pig (!) ran in front of the van, making us swerve and nearly veer into an overgrown field.

On the drive, my mother informed me, all in one breath, that her hair looked great because of the sea air, her hair looked awful because of the humidity, she stole some food at breakfast to eat at lunch time, she woke up in the middle of the night and went to read a book in the bathroom so as not to disturb me, she just never takes no for an answer, she changed the batteries in her camera and it seemed to be working again, we should sit with a different set of relatives that night at dinner or they would be upset, and no, the others would not mind (wrong), her ankles were swollen because they put too much salt in the food at the resort (I hadn’t noticed any seasoning at all), she doesn’t know why, but she just never gets sick, and she’s worn the same bra size since she was 18.

With a huge sigh of relief, I saw that we’d arrived.

At La Isabella, we couldn’t help but notice that we were almost the only people there. I couldn’t believe the Dominican government hadn’t developed the site as a tourist attraction. After all, Columbus landed on the spot and claimed the island for Spain! Didn’t it have historic value? Couldn’t they see the dollar signs?

But no, next to the two of us, I only saw an awkward young couple that seemed to be traveling together, a young family, and a man who may have been a guide of some sort but there was no way to know for sure.

We followed what was left of the wall that surrounded the original fort and admired a tree that was more than 600 years old. Columbus would have seen the same tree when he arrived in 1492.

I took a chance and asked the mystery man where Columbus’ ship had touched land and he made a vague gesture with one hand. Turning, I tried to determine where he was pointing and noticed a small, unmarked beach slightly farther down from where we stood on a bluff.

“That beach?” I tried again, pointing.

He looked exasperated. “Yeah, that beach.”

Well, I can tell you that a more non-descript spot doesn’t exist on this earth. Of course I took several photos.       

As we walked around what was left of the fort, we noticed signs stuck in the dirt that said “church” or “Columbus’ house.”

In the area labeled “cemetery,” small white crosses dotted the landscape. We even saw a human skeleton in a wooden box under wire mesh. The crude sign next to it said the unfortunate soul was one of the original Spaniards (doubt it).

Apparently, soon after Columbus abandoned his crew on the island, most of them died of disease or were murdered by the locals. When Columbus returned a year later, he had to start all over with a fresh (and breathing) group of subordinates.

Our unofficial guide spat out something about a town a mile or so away where the people were mainly blond and blue eyed. Then he flapped his hand in that direction.

“Columbus passed through there,” he growled.

So that more or less concluded our visit to the site where Columbus landed in the Dominican Republic and claimed the island for Spain in 1492.

How a ship full of foreigners sailed into that scruffy little patch of beach and claimed the whole island for their home country, I don’t know.

But Columbus was acting on behalf of Spain, after all, and I’d just spent a week with my Spanish relatives.

I imagined him finishing his morning coffee, reaching for a crust of bread, and declaring Spain the conquering sovereign of this far-flung island.