Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

The Dominican is poor by American standards. Median income is $3,550, less than a tenth of US income. However in the rankings of world's happiest countries, the DR is always near the top. People are well dressed and entrepreneurial. As in many poor countries, they see white tourists as a walking ATM. On our first day my parents agreed to a $28 taxi ride that should have cost $4, and my mom accepted the services of an "official tour guide" who then showed her all the places she could buy Dominican jewelry for five times the normal cost.
Our first stop was at the Faro a Colon, a massive monument built in celebration of the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus voyage to the DR. This place is the size of an Egyptian pyramid. It is built in the shape of a cross, and has a powerful searchlight that supposedly can be seen from space. The light is seldom turned on though, as it causes blackouts in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Me, Mom and Dad in front of Columbus' tomb. This is a site of controversy. Columbus remains were first buried in Valladolid, Spain upon his death in 1506, and then moved to a monastery in Seville. In 1542, his remains were transferred to Santo Domingo. In 1795, the French took over Hispaniola, and his remains were moved to Havana, Cuba. After Cuba became independent in 1898, his remains were moved back to the Cathedral of Seville in Spain. However, a lead box bearing an inscription identifying "Don Christopher Columbus" and containing fragments of bone and a bullet was discovered at Santo Domingo in 1877.

To prove that Spain has the real Columbus, DNA samples were taken in June 2003, but the results are not conclusive. Only a few limited fragments of mitochondrial DNA could be isolated, but these do appear that the body may be that of Columbus. The authorities in Santo Domingo have not allowed the remains there to be exhumed, so it is unknown if any of those remains could be from Columbus's body. So, is this really Columbus' grave or not? I really don't care, because I've been to the Cathedral in Seville as well, so I'm pretty sure I've got him one way or the other!

Later, while sitting on a park bench in Park Colon writing, I was approached by all manner of hustlers and con men. Apparently sitting down and reading Lonely Planet is a flashing red light that says "I'm a lost tourist, come try to rip me off!" The same tour guide sat down and told me all the great deals he could get my "Mama". Later an attractive couple sat by me, the woman a little to close for comfort. The man struck up a conversation with me about growing up in Queens, cheering for the Yankees, and liking Ronald Reagan. Oh and by the way, his "cousin" really liked American guys if I was interested. Umm. No thanks. Next a homeless man asked me if I was actor, and then told me that I looked just like Clint Eastwood. Is that a compliment? I mean, Clint Eastwood is like 78 years old. He then announced that he had AIDS, and could he have some money for his meds? Others would wander by trying to sell me coffee from a jug, Meringue CD's, rosary beads, newspapers in Spanish. Although, at no time did I feel unsafe in Santo Domingo, even while walking some very dark streets. SD has a serious electricity problem. There is not enough juice to support the whole grid of two million people. Rolling blackouts are the norm. The main tourist center would go completely dark every evening for a few hours. The major hotels, restaurants, and stores all have private generators in the basements. The streetlights go out, but life goes on.

Our hotel, the Conde de Penalba, is a gracefully aged building with al fresco dining overlooking the Plaza Colon in SD's colonial district. We enjoyed several Presidente beers on our private second-floor balcony watching ebullient Dominicans and reserved tourists amble by. In the mornings I ran along the Malecon, the long waterfront avenue that hosts the city's high rise hotels and nightlife. I had hoped for a beautiful run along the azure Caribbean Sea, but it was not to be. Unlike the well cared for Zona Colonial, I found the Malecon littered with mountains of garbage. Homeless sleep on concrete benches surrounded by a blanket of trash. The rocky shore is occasionally interrupted by a small beach with every inch of sand covered in plastic. A ring of waste encircles the coastline. Any fresh breeze of Caribbean air is drowned by exhaust fumes of passing motorbikes. The sound of the surf breaking on the rocks is overpowered by the blasts of truck horns. At this moment I have much appreciation for the spotless beaches of Maui and the relative calm of South Kihei Road. In the DR's defense, the following day, I found the majority of the trash picked up, apparently Monday morning is the low point for the Malecon. However, it would take an army of trash pickers to clear the whole coastline.

Returning to the Park Colon, I find Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus in English) omnipresent in Santo Domingo. The Great Admiral's brother Bartholomew founded the city in 1498, making it the oldest European city in the New World. Across from our hotel is the oldest church in continuous use in the Western Hemisphere, built in 1521.
Columbus landed on the north shore of the island of Hispaniola on December 5th 1492, on his first voyage to the New World. Eighteen days later he ran the Santa Maria aground, and was forced to abandon it, tearing it apart to build a fort called "La Navidad" for 39 men he left behind. At this time Hispaniola was inhabited by approximately 400,000 Taino indians. At first the Spanish had peaceful relations with the Taino, but soon took to raping and murdering them. This may have been a bad decision, being outnumbered 10,000 to 1. Columbus returned to La Navidad on November 27, 1493 to discover eleven Spanish corpses lining the beach and that the Taino had killed all 39 Spanish settlers. Columbus sailed 70 miles further east and founded another settlement called "La Isabella". I would think it must have been hard to get volunteers to stay behind this time around. However, this settlement survived, and in 1496 Bart Columbus packed everyone up and sailed to the south side of the island to relocate to what is today the east side of Santo Domingo. The city was completely wiped out by a hurricane in 1502, and they chose to rebuild on the west side of the Ozama river.
Things did not turn out so well for the Taino indians. The Spanish killed thousands through warfare, disease, and slavery. By the mid 1600's the Tainos had been practically wiped out and the Spanish began importing African slaves to work their plantations. The last Taino native was seen in 1864. Dominicans today are a mixture of Spanish and African blood, almost zero native Taino blood remains.

In the evening we caught a cab to Estadio Quisqueya for a beisbol game between the Escogido Leones and Estrellas. Our friendly cabbie played "Name that Tune" with me as he blasted Celine Dion and Whitney Houston while swerving wildly through the blacked-out back streets of SD. We arrived at the sparkling clean stadium, and got 15th row seats behind first base for just 275 pesos ($8), about one fiftieth of what similar seats would cost at Fenway. Dominicans are the best baseball players in the world, far better than Americans on a per-capita measurement of major leaguers. Unfortunately we had picked a game between the two worst teams in the Dominican Winter League, and the crowd numbered less than a thousand. But as the game got underway, it was a loud and enthusiastic thousand. We rooted for the home team Escogido, and they capitalized on some Estrellas errors to win easily 8-3. Several current and former MLB players were in the game including Reggie Willits and Tony Batista. The Dominican game is more of an entertainment production than in America. The had a man on eight foot stilts walking through the stands. A lion mascot taunted the opposing players throughout the game. Perhaps best of all, the seventh inning stretch consisted of a half dozen cheerleaders dressed in hot pants, half shirts and baseball caps doing ridiculous booty shaking dances on the dugout roof, and using the Lion mascot as a stripper pole. It was absolutely outrageous, and I tried to picture curmudgeon sportswriter Dan Shaugnessy of the Boston Globe watching this from a Fenway box seat. We had a blast at Quisqueya stadium, beautiful ballpark, cheap seats, cold beer, and quality play.

The next day Mom and I took on the challenge of navigating the DR's public transport system to go to a nearby beach town. After a longer then expected uphill walk under a hot sun, we were finally directed to a bus labelled "Boca Chica". This private transport was thankfully chilled inside, with plush leather seats. As in most poorer countries, the bus didn't leave until every seat was full; but we didn't have to wait long, and for just 60 pesos ($1.70) we got a 20 mile ride.
Strangely I was the only male passenger on the bus. Maybe Dominican men don't like the beach? The bus driver blaster meringue the whole way, and the lady seated behind us quietly sang along with a sweet voice. We passed tall palm trees and low limestone cliffs along the Caribbean coast. On arrival in Boca Chica, we were almost immediately chased under cover by rain sprinkles. Within a few minutes a virtual wall of water hit us. With about ten seconds of warning, people ran for cover before the deluge. It rained briefly every afternoon during our stay, a pleasant break from the hot sun and high humidity.
Boca Chica has a wide, white powder sand beach. The majority of which is covered by chairs and umbrellas from the Bachata cranking bars and restaurants that line it. And as in SD, as you walk the beach you are approached by people selling CD's, sunglasses, towels, inflatable rafts, marijuana, massage, manicures, sex, boat rides, mariachi-style meringue serenades, and chiclet gum. If you are looking for a quiet, isolated place to read a book, Boca Chica is not the place for you. If you are looking for a Spanish-speaking Spring Break, you've come to the right place.

Dominicans are some of the most expressive people I've met. Always talking, shouting, whistling, singing, beeping car horns. It is not a quiet country. Dominicans are an attractive, well dressed lot. Men in suit pants, Italian leather loafers, and Cuban styled collared dress shirts unashamedly ogle high-heeled women in skin tight jeans as they pass by. It is a society where machismo and femininity have not yet been replaced by workplace harassment sensitivity training.

For the first time ever in my peripatetic travels, I deliberately passed up a chance to add another country to my list. While in Santo Domingo, I was only a three-hour bus ride from the Haitian border. It pained me to not make a day trip over to get country #45. Unfortunately, Haiti is currently the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. AIDS and starvation are ever-present. Stories have circulated in the western media about people eating mud cookies. Crime and murder rates are high, and Haiti just replaced Columbia as the country that kidnapped the most Americans in 2007. So, for once I used my better judgement and stayed in the DR.