Up until a few months ago I kept another blog titled "The Home in Paradise", which chronicled my adventures - and occasional misadventures - as a newly-minted resident of the "Independent Republic of Punta Cana." After a while, life took over; more work found its way to my door, and I had to close the other blog. It isn't dead, however, I moved all the material to this blog and plan on writing the occasional mundane post about homemaking, crafting and life in this Caribbean outpost.
When they hear "Punta Cana" most people think of the tourist enclave on the easternmost point of the Dominican Republic. Smart people, it is so. What most people tend to forget is that there are thousands of us who call this area home. Some of us arrived here not in search of jobs, but in a quest for a more tranquil, peaceful life. Few of us plan to leave voluntarily.
Punta Cana is actually the name of the company that started it all, the PuntaCana Group, which eventually lent its name to the entire area. The towns of Bavaro and Verón are the most populous, the private "towns" PuntaCana and Cap Cana having smaller populations.
My husband and I had been visiting this area for decades. Never would I have thought life would bring us here, especially since in those days this was not much an outpost as just a piece of jungle with two hotels stranded in the middle.
Then we had a child, and we wanted to give her the "small town lifestyle" that my husband and I enjoyed as kids.
And here we are. My child has no memory of her birth city. A trip to Santo Domingo is as exciting as a trip abroad (we live a few minutes from the airport), and Aunt Ilana and I joke that we look like campesinas trying to navigate the traffic in Santo Domingo.
We love our "campo". We love the peace, we love the lack of traffic, the clean air, walking to school, the minimal construction hullabaloo, the unstressed drivers, and the friendly neighbors. Having uninterrupted electric service is nothing to sneer at either.
Moving here was not without sacrifices, but they were well-worth it.
And if you think that Punta Cana is just beaches... well, it is for the most part, but there are hidden treasures to be found. Like the PuntaCana Foundation Ecological Reserve, a long meandering path through unspoiled jungle, following the fresh water lagoons surfacing from an underground river, populated by birds, insects, fish and turtles.
It's one of a few fresh water sites in an area that does not have a river.
We are creating new memories with our daughter. Nature, love, and books. It makes a childhood so much better.
