Paradise On The Beach Resorst Are Beautiful In Caribbean's Punta Cana, But Poverty Is Outside The Gates.

August 27, 2000|by RANDY KRAFT, The Morning Call

If your idea of a perfect vacation is relaxing for days on a white beach lined with tall palm trees, Punta Cana is for you.

That 27-mile-long beach is the main attraction here. But reasonably priced packages to all-inclusive hotels scattered along the beach are why Punta Cana is a hot new destination in the Caribbean.

I came to Punta Cana after local travel agents told me about its growing popularity. I was invited by the Dominican Republic's Ministry of Tourism, which wants more Americans to visit Punta Cana. Tourism is the country's primary industry.

Punta Cana is experiencing the fastest growth of any Caribbean destination, according to Mary Alice Miller a travel counselor at AAA East Penn in Allentown. Europeans, she said, have been coming here for years, but now `American tourists are discovering this tropical paradise."

People don't come to this remote tip of the Dominican Republic to sightsee or learn about the country and its people. There is little to do outside the gates of the modern resorts, which could stand along any Caribbean beach.

Brace yourself for a few cultural shocks in Punta Cana:

Bare-breasted women are in the minority, but they are everywhere sunbathing on the beach and around hotel pools, swimming in the ocean and walking along the shore. It is a European custom, not a Dominican or Latin American custom. There are no separate and secluded topless beaches.

At least in summer, few people speak English. The native language is Spanish. Most visitors are European; there are few Americans.

The Dominican Republic is, as one travel guide puts it, `a desperately poor nation," but one that sees tourism as its economic salvation.

When I arrived in Punta Cana, I saw many people walking along roads, apparently too poor to own cars or even bicycles. Three men rode one small motorbike. I saw people wearing tattered clothing and saw homes that were essentially tin shacks not much more elaborate than huts I helped build when I was a kid.

Then my taxi passed through the gate of my hotel -- Paradisus Punta Cana All-Inclusive Exclusive Beach Resort -- and onto a roadway lined with palms. It was like entering paradise.

Soon I was walking through lush tropical gardens with fountains and sculptures and eating in a buffet restaurant where table after table was loaded with familiar and exotic foods.

The sharp contrast between luxury and poverty was troubling.

Geography

The Punta Cana vacation region is at the eastern end of the Dominican Republic -- also called the D.R. -- which is the second largest country in the Caribbean, after Cuba. The D.R. occupies the eastern two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola. Haiti occupies the western third.

Rather than facing the Caribbean Sea, as some hotels claim, Punta Cana is on Mona Passage, which separates Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico and links the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. Whatever the body of water is called, it's a green ocean with waves not as large as those along the U.S. East Coast.

Loosely translated, Punta Cana means `point of the palms," said Luis Santiago, spokesman for the Ministry of Tourism.

From the air, Punta Cana looks wild and green. While the terrain is level, rugged mountains stand in the distance.

The terminal at Punta Cana International Airport is a modern thatched-roofed building with open sides. Brittania, Air Europe and Air Portugal were names on jumbo jets parked next to the terminal when I arrived.

The Punta Cana area is sparsely populated. There are some houses and businesses, but it is mostly thick scrub, with an occasional cow or two. Except for a few scattered billboards for car rentals and for Manati Park, a nearby zoo, it is uncommercial. It seems an unlikely place for a major airport or modern resorts.

Higuey, the town nearest to Punta Cana, is nearly a one-hour drive away. It's the largest easternmost city in the D.R. Many people who work at Punta Cana's hotels commute by bus from Higuey.

On the beach

The days were clear in late July, but hot and uncomfortably humid -- the kind of weather where a clean shirt is soaked in about three minutes. Such weather can dampen appetites in open-air resorts, even after dark. On most days the water temperature of the ocean and swimming pool was too warm to be refreshing.

The resorts offer plenty of beach activities. Every afternoon a group of people, mostly enthusiastic women, learns the merengue and other Latin dances from high-energy instructors at Paradisus. Nearby, young people kick up the sand in volleyball and soccer games.

In the ocean, children in orange life jackets bounce over waves aboard those gigantic yellow bananas pulled by boats. Some guests try wind-surfing, and quickly learn it's much harder than it looks. Others try sailing, kayaking and big-wheeled peddle boats.

A gray raft attached to a motorized hang glider occasionally flies through the sky, looking like it is defying gravity. Helicopters carrying sightseers also bank off the coast and para-sailers wave from above.

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