Bland with a capital Blah!

 Three days into our DR trip, the mob of local families who descended on the hotel on Good Friday, seizing the remaining rooms at discount prices have checked out, leaving their garbage, discarded beer cans and chip wrappers for the staff to deal with.

Now, with barely 30% occupancy, the pool area is quiet and the beach, more or less deserted.

Playa Dorada, approximately 20 Km of white sands faces North East with nothing other than the Turks and Caicos to block the flow of currents from Europe. With the incoming winds barely registering 5km/hr the ocean is an endless flat surface of turquoise and blue save for a few whitecaps close to shore. The horizon for the last few days has been empty of traffic, save for a solitary cruise ship making its way north. Not even a solitary fishing boat has breached the vicinity of our temporary home.

Also missing are the dozens of local vendors armed with the briefcases full of fake silver jewelry , phoney coral bracelets and offers of “free” hair braiding-mind you, guys my age don’t have much to braid, not until braided nose hair becomes a fashion statement.

So far, the week of afternoon rain showers promised by AccuWeather have yet to appear, although there were some flashes of lightning and accompanying thunder some miles to the south.

The biggest disappointment of the trip so far has been the food 

 As is usually the case, the novelty of an All Inclusive started wearing out by the end of day 3. They seem to have a knack of turning any food into an unappetizing mishmash of sheer blandness. Even the “gourmet” a La cartes can take a fairly interesting dish and turn it into something with all the umph of boiled cabbage. Sunday’s offering, masquerading as veal scallopini turned out to be a slab of perhaps, rump steak, somewhat overcooked, on a bed of scalloped potatoes. 

The main buffet offers a choice of carbs, carbs and more carbs, which the locals seemed to scoop up by the plate full- beans and rice, or rice and beans or just beans or just rice. Potatoes, when offered were boiled to the point of sludge, the only exception being the fries at the snack bar which made up for the hockey pucks being passed off as hamburgers. 

Even when meals do have the potential to redeem themselves, the carving skills of the server are akin to a blind man with a machete. With no concept of “ with or against the grain” a leg of lamb, or a roast of beef is quickly reduced to a shredded pile of unrecognizable strands of fibre and string.

 Soup is the one saving grace as they haven’t figured out a way to ruin it - although it was interesting to see several tourists perplexed that one of Monday’s offerings was absolutely stone cold. Surely I couldn’t be the only person in the resort who’d eaten gazpacho before. 

We’ve booked an excursion to visit the downtown area for shopping, as well as a cable car ride to a botanical garden at the top of an adjacent mountaintop. Hopefully that will be an interesting diversion from lazing by the beach all day.