The D.R.

The Posse deals with frozen beers, cracked windshields and “nice girls.&rdquo

31 Jan — 6 Feb 2004

Continental Flight 1950 touches down in sultry Santo Domingo from ice–bound Newark. A cart welcomes arrivals with white rum on ice. Think Molotov cocktail without the wick.

Dominicans are beautiful people, bright–eyed and quick to smile, but poverty is wrenching here and security intense. People risk death crossing 80 miles of open sea to illegally seek work in an unwelcoming Puerto Rico, which has its own problems.

The Dominican president is Hipolito Mejia. Locals despise him. Expats call him “Hippo,” and not with affection. (Three months after we left, the voters emphatically swept him out of office.)

Nine a.m. is big here. The shops open, the buses start to roll and the electricity comes back on, which means the ATM machine you tried at 8:30 will now actually work.

Walt and Kathy are at the Renaissance Jaragua, a huge Marriott hotel and casino on the Malecon. Jay, Irene and I are at the Hotel Palacio in the Zona Colonial.

How old is Zona Colonial? Restaurant Pat’e Palo has been here for 500 years.

My favorite place is Paco’s Cafeteria, a sidewalk cafe at one end of the El Conde promenade. Cuban sandwiches and the local beer, Presidente, in bottles the size of artillery shells 24 hours. I love their “frozen lemon,” lemon juice, sugar and ice like a Slurpee. (It has since changed its name to Grand’s, but everyone still knows and refers to it as Paco’s.)

At a Malecon restaurant, a waiter introduces us to a liqueur called guavaberry. Only later do we learn that guavaberry is found only on St. Maarten. We’re on the wrong island.

No beaches in Santo Domingo, but lots of colonial history. Dominicans say Christopher Columbus is buried here; there’s some dispute over that. There’s the old fortress. The Shipwreck Museum has Caribbean artifiacts brought up from the sea floor.

Walking around the Zona Colonial at night is risky. Power outages are a nightly event, and the sidewalks have holes deep enough to snap your leg. Plaza Colon is big enough for three football fields. We walk right by it twice without seeing it.

A cab ride at night is a scene out of “Bladerunner,” rattling through black streets strewn with trash. Dogs lie on their sides, probably dreaming of nights without humidity.

We see palatial, mist–shrouded mountain homes in Jarabacoa and waterfalls in Baiguate. Jay and Irene worked in a side trip to San Pedro de Macoris, the Holy See of Shortstops.

But the trip highlight, hands down, is restaurant El Conuco, traditional Dominican food, music and dance. The dancers spin on one foot while balanced atop an empty bottle of Cointreau. Have a look.

The first time I’m in a cab to myself, the cabbie wants to take me to meet a “nice girl” he knows, a theme that would be repeated in several cabs this week.

The games are played at Estadio Quisqueya. Quisqueya is the Taino word for this land. Taino art survives here, but thanks to the Spanish, the Taino themselves do not.

The Dominicans dominate as usual, but the surprise is Mexico. Lifeless and winless the year before, their play this year is the talk of the Serie.

Ultimately, the Dominicans triumph, with Mexico a strong second and Venezuela a decent third. Puerto Rico goes down in flames at 0–6.