Hammock Review:

Macao, Dominican Republic

Arriving at the Punta Cana airport and waiting in the line to clear Immigration, it is clear most of my fellow passengers are soon going to be in all-you-can-eat-and-drink-style resorts, a sort of cruise ship parked on the beach.

This becomes even more clear after clearing Customs and most take off in their hotel shuttles, while I slither past to the bus stop.

I would be lying if I denied there was a part of me that was a little envious. I am tired and while I have little experience at such resorts, I do know they offer an awesome, luxuriously relaxing time. Something I wouldn’t mind being shuttled to right now.

I haven’t usually stayed in resorts for a couple reasons. I normally can’t afford them. Additionally, it is honestly not my ideal way of travel: because resorts are often so isolated from whatever location they’re in, it sometimes feels like you could be anywhere in the world. You are in a bubble.

Still, I will stop short of the word some use to split up travel—”(in)authentic.” Referring to certain experiences as “authentic” and others as “inauthentic” I think in itself is inauthentic. I feel, in life, whatever experiences we are genuinely engaged in are authentic. However we travel or experience a place—even if for an extended period of time—is only a sliver of the multitude of different and diverse experiences taking place there.

For instance using Google Maps or Google Earth to explore a place you want to visit is not inauthentic; it is simply just not as authentic as reading Hammock Reviews on sweetlivinproductions.com.

I am not anti-resort. Especially the older I get: if I had more opportunities to stay at a resort, I would take them—and enjoy them.

As long as they had hammocks.

A resort without a hammock might as well be a Red Roof Inn.

At the end of the day, it comes down to preference: you are on vacation and how do you prefer to relax (given your budget)? What is your requiescence strategy?

A hotel, a hostel, an Airbnb, or a resort? I have often preferred the hostel because of the interaction it facilitates with different travelers which is very much in concert with the hammock lifestyle.

Yet one cannot deny that a hammock is no stranger to gluttony, which is no stranger to resorts.

Punta Cana embodies the resort idea. It is perhaps the height of resorts, as it was once a sleepy village until a huge amount of land was purchased to ultimately arouse a resort city, which has been alive and thriving for decades.

I take my first bus to Verón; my second to Higüey; and my last to Macao—asking for directions and clarifications along the way, a simple joy of travelling. This is one reason I like travelling so much: it effortlessly elevates the mundane to exciting. The majority of life is a series of seemingly regular or mundane tasks that we should find joy or excitement in if we are to live the majority of lives in joy or excitement, yet normal routines at home can sometimes obscure that simply joy and excitement, making it hard to find at times. When travelling, you may physically get lost at times, but that joy and excitement for the simple daily tasks is easily found.

Unfortunately, hammocks—the world’s top facilitator of joy—are not as easily found as they should be. In the 1950s, J. Edgar Hoover could find communists under every bed, but today we have much more technology at our disposal and it doesn’t seem like even the world’s top intelligence agencies can find hammocks, which can easily be stored under a bed without requiring the food supply or sanitary facility needs of a communist in that same position.

This global problem is something our International Modern Hammock Movement (IMHM) seeks to solve. We hope that day of revelation—The Day of Great Relaxation—arrives sooner rather than later.

For now, after enjoying the could-easily-be-mundane-task-back-home of bus riding, I arrive in a small town and take a long stroll down a gravel road until arriving at Macao Beach Hostel, a comfortable and modest establishment run by Andrés from Colombia who creates a friendly atmosphere.

I stay in a room that neighbors a few others with a porch in front, where the hammock reviewed here in this Hammock Review is located. By this point, I truly need a hammock—and it suits me well.

I get up and take a stroll to the beach, which is around the construction of a massive new resort, built by investors from Russia I am told. I wonder what it will look like when completed.

Whatever the exact result, it will be both massive in size and starkly different from the humble Macao Beach Hostel.

But will the resort have a hammock as so many neglect to have?

Andrés did not neglect hammocks at his hostel, as has been so well-documented (citation: Macao Review, Hammock).

After the beach, I stroll to the center of the small town, where there is a sort of small patio bar in front of a convenient store where I have a few beers as the sun settles. Among the various people, various farm animals pass.

Feeling nice, relaxed, and buzzed, I stroll back down the gravel road to the hostel and lay in the hammock, where I shortly encounter a nice couple from Mexico. We talk for a while before settling in to sleep.

The next day I stroll again to the beach, this time taking the other route around the huge resort construction. It just seems to go on forever. And again, as I glance back around the construction site, I wonder what each building frame will turn into, and how long it would take for each bit to mature into adulthood.

Will this concrete come to be the “cheap” rooms? And will that concrete evolve into the expensive rooms? Will this concrete be where breakfast is served? Will that concrete be for the fancy dinners?

Will that empty space over there that lacks concrete be the hammock courtyard? The anchor of authenticity in this bubbling resort, for no one has ever had an inauthentic experience in a hammock.

There is a lot to think about as this is somewhat of a long walk.

But it is a quick stay at this hammock and hostel. Both of which are quite pleasant.

I pass the Mexico couple on the gravel road as I leave, dragging my carry-on-sized rollaboard bag so ridiculously behind me with the dirt and small rocks sputtering behind the wheels. I wonder if they think, “This ridiculous[ly handsome] guy really should get a backpack.” As far me, I enjoyed my stay, but in the moment of resistance from the gravel road, I wish had a backpack—or maybe even a night at a resort.

But I don’t need it: my mind and body are at ease because I had already had my hammock. The best of bubbles, for in a hammock you are always aware of the world around you as it gently enters into your being through the woven patterns in the fabric, while your joy and relaxation magically never leak out.