Boca Chica

Boca Chica grew up around sugar. The Dominican state developed the area through the Boca Chica sugar company from 1916, and in the 1920s the businessman Juan Bautista Vicini Burgos built up its cane plantations. Dredging of the port of Andrés in the 1950s created the small island of Los Pinos in the bay.

In the same decade the beach became the retreat of the capital's wealthiest families, who built summer houses along the sand, reached only by private transport. Visiting presidents and film stars came to stay by the beach. After the assassination of Rafael Trujillo in 1961 the beach opened up to the public, and buses brought crowds from Santo Domingo through the 1960s and 1970s. It stopped being an elite hideaway and became the beach of every class in the capital.

From the 1970s new resort areas such as Playa Dorada and Sosúa on the north coast drew foreign tourists away, but from the 1990s visitors from North America and Europe came in large numbers again, especially between December and April. Boca Chica became a municipality in its own right in 2001, and La Caleta a municipal district within it in 2004.

Boca Chica's character comes from its role as the capital's beach. At weekends and on public holidays families pour in from Santo Domingo with coolers and radios, and the sand fills with music, dominoes and children playing in the shallows. Holy Week above all brings crowds of Dominicans of modest means to the beach.

The beachfront economy is informal and lively: vendors walk the sand selling fried snacks, fruit, souvenirs and drinks, and small bars play merengue and bachata all day. The town is part of the Greater Santo Domingo metropolitan area, and many residents commute to the capital or work at the port and the airport nearby, so outside the beach strip it feels like any working Dominican town.

Dress and manners follow the beach: swimwear and bare feet on the sand, but covered up in the streets. Greetings matter, and a 'buenas' to vendors and neighbours is the norm.

At the 2022 census the municipality of Boca Chica had about 167,000 people, about 105,000 of them in the town itself and the rest in rural districts. It is part of the Greater Santo Domingo area and is home to the region's main port, its main international airport and a technology park, so many people work in transport, logistics and services as well as in tourism.

Tourism remains the visible economy along the beachfront, with hotels, guesthouses, bars, restaurants and a dive trade serving the reefs of La Caleta. The beach's appeal to foreign tourists has faded in recent years, but it still draws large numbers of Dominicans.

The rhythm follows the week. Weekdays are relatively quiet, with fishermen, vendors and a few foreign visitors on the sand; on Saturdays and Sundays the guaguas from the capital arrive full, the music rises, and the bay fills with swimmers until late afternoon.

Fried fish is the dish of Boca Chica: whole pescado frito, served at stalls and seafront restaurants with tostones — flattened, twice-fried green plantain — lime and a cold beer. The beach is equally known for yaniqueques, thin discs of crisp fried dough a Dominican version of the johnnycake, said to have been brought by English-speaking migrants in the 19th century.

The beach is known for its informal businesses and its own particular products, from yaniqueques and fried fish to mamajuana, and small shops, pizzerias and sea-view restaurants line the sand. Away from the beach, comedores serve the Dominican lunch of rice, beans and stewed meat, and pastelitos, fried pastries filled with meat or cheese, are sold from street carts. Weekend visitors from the capital often bring their own food and drink in coolers and buy fish and snacks from the vendors.

To drink there are fruit batidos, Presidente beer and rum, and mamajuana — rum steeped with bark and herbs, sold in bottles along the beach.