Day 11

I am finally beginning to unwind.

This is something valuable to remember: the first week of a trip should almost be considered a write-off. (Well, for me at least, when travelling to a new place.) Week two is when my mind slows down, stops grasping for familiarity and rejecting change. Adaptation spreads gradually. At first, everything that is different is a challenge to the mind.

Expectations aside, there is still an unconscious mental picture that one forms; the imagination tries to illustrate the future, and then the mind is forced to reconcile the imaginary with reality.

I am no longer thinking, dozens of times a day, about how different this is from Hawaii. I was at first. Hawaii is the only other tropical place I've been to, and I've spent enough time there now to feel that I know it - even that a part of me is still there. (Eg. Oh, the ocean is not as clear. Oh, the waves are not as big. There are no sea turtles! Where are the humpback whales? No plumeria?! No zebra doves? God, I could really go for some macadamia nuts. Gee, they really don't have much of a surf culture here, do they?)

But I know that if I return to Hawaii, or travel someplace else, I'll be comparing it to the Dominican in the same way. Its own beauties and complexities are taking hold of me. Here, in Las Terrenas, the beach doesn't end - or doesn't seem to - and the water meets the sky from one end of the horizon to the other. Here, there are no traffic lights and shopping malls and fast-food chains; there are makeshift oil-can barbecues on the beach and fishermen standing in the surf with nothing but a piece of line and a hook. There are one-room shacks made of corrogated tin and palm fronds and the inhabitants thereof sitting by the road, laughing and talking. Everywhere, there is colour. Everywhere, material poverty and friendliness. Empty lots full of garbage and empty coconut shells and roaming cattle beside large billboards for candidate Danilo. I don't know what the rest of the country is like yet, but what I've seen here is enough to chew on for a long time.
In Las Terrenas, nobody speaks English, so we're trying to learn as much Spanish as we can. Not just for the sake of getting our needs taken care of, (we can manage that much) but to converse with the locals. They are so willing to connect - I've had many lovely exchanges with people, where there is no comprehension, but total warmth on both sides. There is much that I'd like to talk to them about, and their lives here. I'd like to sit around and hear their banter and laugh with them. I'd like to know if they're as content as they seem, for I'm learning that in many ways, simplicity equals happiness.
Bit by bit, word by word, we're advancing. We feel a bit like neolithic, monolingual fatheads amongst our Swiss neighbours (with their German, French, Spanish, English and Romansh) but it's fun. It feels so good to learn something with real purpose. There's no shortage of luxuriating in the sun, but my brain is not going to turn into an overripe avocado while I'm here. Plenty to think about. Plenty to contemplate. Plenty to muse on.