The open-air terminal felt like it was built in the heyday of Caribbean weekender tourism. The airport is nestled between rolling hills and plantain fields, and I half expected to see Pan Am planes landing in the background.
Don't mind that guy in the foreground. He doesn't fit the narrative.
Aimee and I were definitely in travel mode, and neither one of us were excited about the customary Latin American tourist hustle that we thought would greet us when we walked out of customs. But there was nothing. No one trying to sell us crap that we didn't need. No one looking to shuttle us into their cousin's available guest room. No one herding us into their nearby restaurant. We couldn't even catch a cab. We had to ask, like, three airport employees where the taxi stand was. It was wonderful.
The airport was no anomaly. While the country is definitely dependent on tourist money, they go about it a lot more calmly than other places that we've visited.
We did eventually find ourselves a cab, and had a nice conversation with the driver. He had lived in New York for twelve years (as did apparently everyone else on the island), but as a testament to New York's all-encompassing cultural pockets, he didn't speak a word of English.
The driver took us to the local bus station, since our hotel was an hour or two away from the airport. The taxi driver offered to take us all the way to the hotel for $80, but we knew that there had to be a bus out of town. And I took a moment to be thankful that I had just married someone who thought that the bus was clearly the better choice. "It's all part of it," she said. Plus, the bus cost $3.
Not my best photo, but here's the bus station:
Not my best photo, but here's the bus station:
I was barely awake for a combined 10 minutes of the bus ride, but what I remember was beautiful. We both noticed the lack of garbage on the side of the road. And there was definitely poverty, but it wasn't the kind of poverty that usually lingers outside of most other Latin American tourist sites.
But it was like every other Latin American country in that it was nearly impossible to know where our bus was heading, and which stop we had just left. Would it kill them to put up a sign or two?
We still had one quick cab ride from the arrival station to our hotel, but it was easy. After a mildly panic-inducing moment of unrecognition, the driver did know our hotel. Which was nice, since aside from a print out of an emailed confirmation receipt, we knew absolutely nothing about where we were going.
But things would work out just fine.
