I fully intended to remain in the D.R., my “home for life” where I have lived for eleven years.
On Saturday, my long-term girlfriend reported robberies of customers leaving a market in Santiago; reports of two robberies of merchants on Duarte, near where I live, today or yesterday, a colmado on Benito Gonzalez and Altagracia wiped out of all cash and merchandise, blocks from my house. I have instructed her not to use the bright yellow La Sirena bags but to walk with her son and to carry items in a non-descript bag.
With 80% of the population in the informal sector living, at best, “hand to mouth, “ and now no income and no prospects of buying food, one need not be a rocket scientist . . . I decided on Saturday “better safe than sorry” and “err on the side of caution."
I am now in Palm Springs, CA where the informal sector does not exist. In the D.R. I faced two foes: crime and COVID, here one foe: COVID.
In this post I want to bullet my experience getting out, should any of this information benefit others at DR1:
1. Find the direct website of the international airport you plan to leave from. For “Las Americas,” SDQ, I found departures in real time, both cancelled and scheduled: https://www.santo-domingo-airport.com/es/aeropuerto-santo-domingo.php
On the upper left, use drop down menu for “Vuelos” and select “Salidas.” There you will find another drop down menu for time of day. All flights to MIA were cancelled. The only airport in the U.S. that had departures was—surprise!--JFK. My flight plan included SDQ < JFK < PSP (Palm Springs, CA). Nothing was available for four days, the following Wednesday. So I tried buying two tickets, one to JFK, the next to PSP, and this was successful. I booked on Saturday, March 28, and left on Sunday, March 29. The price from SDQ to JFK on JetBlue was $130.00 USD, from JFK to PSP on Delta, $90.00 USD.
(2) I left with my backpack and essential items only: electronics, meds, miscl., no clothes. No checked luggage. I also brought a blanket and warm shirt for sleeping, possibly, at airports.
(3) I left four hours early on Sunday. The Uber driver balked and said I must pay cash. I didn’t have enough money as I left quickly, no time to go to the bank. We compromised. I paid the RD$595 via internet and gave a cash tip of RD$400.
(4) At the airport, all cash exchanges were closed; only ATM’s available. There were two lines. One had more than 100 people waiting (I could not ascertain the airline), the other, JetBlue, my airline, had no passengers waiting except for me. Be prepared then for a humongous line, think two hours in advance.
(5) **BIG BOTTLENECK at immigration after passing through security. It was evident that all visitors who were in the D.R. for less than 30 days, had already left. The queue to pay overstay tax was about 75 persons long and very, very slow. Only one staff person collecting fees and many instances of argument and unavailability of change. I’m sure that most people in this line missed their flight. I waited in this line about 1.5 hours and barely made it on time.
(6) Arrival at JFK. The immigration section, which was set up to allow hundreds of persons to queue, had only about ten passengers. In JFK there were more employees than passengers and almost everything was closed. I arrived at about 6:00 P.M. with my PSP flight scheduled to go out at 6:50 A.M. on Monday.
No food available except for donuts and coffee. I found a discreet area on the floor at some gate and bedded down for the night. No gate information was available on my boarding pass, only the terminal. Very, very few people at the airport was a big plus for minimizing COVID infection in spite of the fact that NYC is the epicenter in the U.S.
(7) On Monday, my morning flight was cancelled and re-scheduled for the afternoon. Then my afternoon flight was cancelled. I got on my third flight, some 34 hours after leaving Santo Domingo, and arrived late at night after a layover and another flight, successful, from SLC, Salt Lake City.
I spoke with my long term girlfriend today, via video, in Sto. Dom. She is 57 years old. Poor thing. She thinks I’m coming back in a month or so. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it will likely be a long, long time—if ever.
My life is in the D.R., not the U.S. But I left for self-preservation, the future unknown.
On Saturday, my long-term girlfriend reported robberies of customers leaving a market in Santiago; reports of two robberies of merchants on Duarte, near where I live, today or yesterday, a colmado on Benito Gonzalez and Altagracia wiped out of all cash and merchandise, blocks from my house. I have instructed her not to use the bright yellow La Sirena bags but to walk with her son and to carry items in a non-descript bag.
With 80% of the population in the informal sector living, at best, “hand to mouth, “ and now no income and no prospects of buying food, one need not be a rocket scientist . . . I decided on Saturday “better safe than sorry” and “err on the side of caution."
I am now in Palm Springs, CA where the informal sector does not exist. In the D.R. I faced two foes: crime and COVID, here one foe: COVID.
In this post I want to bullet my experience getting out, should any of this information benefit others at DR1:
1. Find the direct website of the international airport you plan to leave from. For “Las Americas,” SDQ, I found departures in real time, both cancelled and scheduled: https://www.santo-domingo-airport.com/es/aeropuerto-santo-domingo.php
On the upper left, use drop down menu for “Vuelos” and select “Salidas.” There you will find another drop down menu for time of day. All flights to MIA were cancelled. The only airport in the U.S. that had departures was—surprise!--JFK. My flight plan included SDQ < JFK < PSP (Palm Springs, CA). Nothing was available for four days, the following Wednesday. So I tried buying two tickets, one to JFK, the next to PSP, and this was successful. I booked on Saturday, March 28, and left on Sunday, March 29. The price from SDQ to JFK on JetBlue was $130.00 USD, from JFK to PSP on Delta, $90.00 USD.
(2) I left with my backpack and essential items only: electronics, meds, miscl., no clothes. No checked luggage. I also brought a blanket and warm shirt for sleeping, possibly, at airports.
(3) I left four hours early on Sunday. The Uber driver balked and said I must pay cash. I didn’t have enough money as I left quickly, no time to go to the bank. We compromised. I paid the RD$595 via internet and gave a cash tip of RD$400.
(4) At the airport, all cash exchanges were closed; only ATM’s available. There were two lines. One had more than 100 people waiting (I could not ascertain the airline), the other, JetBlue, my airline, had no passengers waiting except for me. Be prepared then for a humongous line, think two hours in advance.
(5) **BIG BOTTLENECK at immigration after passing through security. It was evident that all visitors who were in the D.R. for less than 30 days, had already left. The queue to pay overstay tax was about 75 persons long and very, very slow. Only one staff person collecting fees and many instances of argument and unavailability of change. I’m sure that most people in this line missed their flight. I waited in this line about 1.5 hours and barely made it on time.
(6) Arrival at JFK. The immigration section, which was set up to allow hundreds of persons to queue, had only about ten passengers. In JFK there were more employees than passengers and almost everything was closed. I arrived at about 6:00 P.M. with my PSP flight scheduled to go out at 6:50 A.M. on Monday.
No food available except for donuts and coffee. I found a discreet area on the floor at some gate and bedded down for the night. No gate information was available on my boarding pass, only the terminal. Very, very few people at the airport was a big plus for minimizing COVID infection in spite of the fact that NYC is the epicenter in the U.S.
(7) On Monday, my morning flight was cancelled and re-scheduled for the afternoon. Then my afternoon flight was cancelled. I got on my third flight, some 34 hours after leaving Santo Domingo, and arrived late at night after a layover and another flight, successful, from SLC, Salt Lake City.
I spoke with my long term girlfriend today, via video, in Sto. Dom. She is 57 years old. Poor thing. She thinks I’m coming back in a month or so. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it will likely be a long, long time—if ever.
My life is in the D.R., not the U.S. But I left for self-preservation, the future unknown.
