Websites about the Dominican Republic and especially about Punta Cana are plentiful like sand on the sea.
Where the beautiful white sand beach in front of our terrace on the beach of Punta Cana is certainly more beautiful than most of the webpage information that has been made mainly only for attracting bona fide package tourists.
This webpage should be a bit different.
It should protect, for example.
If you feel like it, read on, I'll try to take her on a little Caribbean tour.
For 17 years now our little condominium has been given the beautiful name Condominio Playa Arena Gorda.
A caption for the above image.
It is certainly the most exclusive and most beautifully located condominium in Punta Cana.
Right on the snow-white Caribbean beach, small and inconspicuous - and only with the aim of enabling the residents a life that everyone dreams of.
Large Cocos palm trees, snow-white, cold, sandy beaches, turquoise of the sea directly in front of the door and at any time of day or night a view from the terrace on this dream come true - every commercial photographer would be jealous.
the most famous French of all times were everywhere in their lives. From Egypt to Britain, from Rome to the other end of the world - they were not only in the Caribbean.
They would certainly have felt very well, if they had got to know this small condominium.
In their French homeland they lived, as is well known, on the outermost edge of Brittany in a very small town, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Roman legionnaires who had just occupied France.
Here with us it is basically the same.
In our small condominium live a small handful of people from all parts of the world - and around them are permanently 25,000 - 30,000 tourists who like legionaries have this part of the beautiful Dominican Republic firmly in their hands.
In Punta Cana there are currently 33 large hotels on a beautiful 20 km long sandy beach. Each hotel with 1000-1200 beds. And every hotel with a capacity of about 70-80% on average one year.
Add to this the same number of people who are there for the tourists.
From chambermaids to waiters, from gardeners to security, from kitchen helpers to craftsmen - Every day, 25,000 Dominicans come to Punta Cana to serve 25,000 tourists.
None of these Dominicans, who are vital to tourism, can afford an apartment or a room in Punta Cana. They are brought to the hotel every day and every night with hundreds of old bosoms from near and far from work.
And between all these crowds there are exactly 80 meters of beach - which is totally empty.
Where only four small houses on the beach and behind it again 4 small further houses can be seen.
And where on this beach piece, perhaps once in a while, three or four people look at the sea under a palm tree on a deckchair.
At Asterix, a nice party was held in the village after every adventure.
It's a bit quieter here.
Every evening, when the tourists are all back in their hotel castles, we can look from the terrace to the Caribbean - as it was hundreds of years ago and hopefully it will be a very long time.
So far we live here now, every year about six months.
The other time you need to relax, because after a while, the paradise is simply boring.
But what are the tourists doing here who only booked a week or two weeks or a maximum of three weeks in the Caribbean?
The answer we can pray down like the pope his rosary.
They arrive,
They stay at the hotel for the first two days.
On the third day they start to explore the beach.
And on the 4th - 6th day they develop into the classic Caribbean beach runner.
You leave at 10:00 am for a walk after breakfast.
The purpose of this walk is not to look at the sea or the Palm or the other hotels from the beach.
And between all these crowds there are exactly 80 meters of beach
- which is totally empty.
But to kill the time until lunch.
It is completely irrelevant whether they look from their hotel to the left or right to the beach to explore.
He is the same everywhere.
After 1 hour they may have seen the same thing ten times - beautiful beach and beautiful sea.
And on this beautiful beach many other tourists in other hotels on other beach chairs.
Now they've been running in one direction for an hour - totally lost the orientation where their own hotel actually was.
That's not surprising, because the only difference on the beach is the color of the loungers.
The one hotel has green beach chairs, the other white, the next red and turn the next blue.
Otherwise everything is totally the same.
If these tourists then find it slightly disturbed that they do not even know where they have to go back - then we come into play.
The absolute monotony of beach design is interrupted only once by 80 meters beach, where there are no beach chairs
Where there are no tourists.
Where absolutely nothing is - except really empty beach and behind it four small ocher-brown houses.
This is so unusual that now out of pure need, the tourists take a heart and come to us - with the same question in any language:
And between all these crowds there is exactly "Where am I"?
Of course, the hotels are also aware of this situation.
And every hotel therefore has colored bracelets for their own hotel guests - always in different colors.
This should be prevented from the point of view of the hotel that any people just sit in the hotel 's all - inclusive restaurants and stomach. But that does not happen anyway, because without a wristband - ID no one comes into a hotel.
These colored bracelets finally fulfill their actual purpose:
We just tell the lost tourist to raise your hand and show you the color of your bracelet.
The tourists do not know at first what that is supposed to be.
But since I speak many languages myself and can appear reasonably convincing, they raise their arms and I then see by color to which hotel they have to go back.
The answer is then always the same:
for example ... to the left, past the hotel with the green loungers, past the hotel with the red loungers - and then the hotel comes with the blue lounge chairs, and you live there ...
I can now translate this sentence into ten different languages
In the second week, the tourist then has its discovery phase.
The first wish is the famous country - and - people - get to know the question.
He would like to - preferably from the perspective of the zoo visitor who strolls through the zoo and from a safe distance looks at the exotic - from such a position, he would now like to get to know the country and people.
He has no car, he has no idea about the traffic here in the country and he has above all no idea that there is nothing to see except the beach and the sea here in the whole area.
Withered grass, salt marshes, rickety cows and even rickier horses.
Pretty good roads with very friendly people, all living right on the edge of the road - all this he will not experience, because the hotels are keen on not allowing tourists to go on their own.
That has its meaning, but more about it elsewhere.
So the tourist now sets out to get to know the nearer area better together with his wife.
He knows the beach paths a bit, and overall, he enjoyed the first week here in the little paradise.
Whether he comes from Texas or Rio or Lapland, invents everything beautifully.
So now he's looking for a way to check if something like that could not happen in any form in his life.
In a nutshell - he starts to think about the idea of finding something here in the Dom Rap, where he might come back later.
And that's the beginning of the gauntlet run in our small condominium.
But we are the only ones who are predominantly my family, who are the victims.
The tourists can not just go to any hotel on the beach and ask: how much does an apartment or a house cost, or how can I stay here cheaper and longer next time?
Nobody would even want to listen to them.
So you go - and then they come to the place of the beach where our little Condominio stands.
And now, it's either eleven o'clock in the morning or around five o'clock in the afternoon, they come slowly and uncertainly from the beach to our Condominio.
Most overplay this insecurity due to extremely brisk occurrence and I could separately write a little book about the five different types that we have come to know over the years.
In the category how do I put the stupidest questions the fastest? there are only winners.
Our condominium is protected day and night by our own security guards.
These Dominican security guards have the job of keeping the residents living in the condominium uninvited.
But the tourists go first to the guards and ask in any language what that is and what it costs and whether you can rent or buy. No matter what language you speak, our guards will not understand you.
Then they routinely accompany the tourists to our apartment.
And when they stand with our foreign visitors in front of our terrace, they murmur grinningly a number in Spanish - that's just the second or third or fourth visitor they brought to us this morning. The conversation, what I relax then, is irrelevant.
It is amazing how many people from as many continents in the most different years of life are able to ask exactly the same questions.
Kann man Hunde oder Kinder mitbringen oder umgekehrt ?
Can I rent this?
How big in the apartment?
Can you buy that?
Does the house consist of a large apartment?
Which hotel does this belong to?
Are the prices dollars or euros or pesos?
Can you bring dogs or children or vice versa?
Can I go to your toilet?
And then I would like to visit the apartment.
Always the same questions ...
My respect for film actors has grown tremendously in recent years. I've heard and read that for certain film shots individual scenes are shot up to thirty or even fifty times until everything is right in this single scene. And the actor has to behave in each repetition as if everything happens for the first time.
So it is here with us.
And my three private Oscars, which I have received from some good friends and compassionate family members in recent years out of compassion and appreciation for extreme self-restraint - I have earned these three Oscars.
The standard answers to all standard questions I then give in the course of the morning or afternoon to all who are standing with big questioning children's eyes in front of me and are already quite convinced that they have finally found the key to the little paradise.
As a careful and well-organized German, I have now stored all relevant answers in four or five categories in my head, looking for details
I will also answer your questions politely and easily if necessary.
My dream would be to just pick up a small business card from my office here in our apartment and to ask you, smiling, to inform you on the website given there about everything.
This dream should finally come true.
What you have read so far will be crucial in redirecting our family life back to long-lost normal paths.
