A Visit to Santo Domingo

Our friends on S/V Guajira had arrived in Luperón almost a week ahead of us. The gorgeous weather window that brought us to Luperón from TCI the following week was supposed to have brought then to Samaná on the east end of the Dominican Republic. A day prior to that, conditions had not been great and the Armada had to rescue a boat off the coast. They kept the port shut to outgoing traffic for two days, which stranded everyone who had been banking on using that beautiful weather window. At some point I really am going to have to write about weather windows and clearing in and out of island nations. The bottom line is that Guajira was still in Luperón when we arrived.

The morning after we arrived, Guajira invited us to join them on a Wednesday-Thursday road trip to Santo Domingo, the Capitol of DR, located on the south coast. Of course we would! So we booked a room at the same hotel. Juan picked us up in their dinghy the next morning, Wednesday, around 8:30am and we met Alison and their friend, Glyn, at the Las Velas marina where they had brought the rental car. Off we went! 

The first part of the 3-4 hour drive was through the beautiful countryside and mountains. We made good time to Santo Domingo, but it took us about 20 minutes to find parking, all on street. Turned out to be just around the corner from the hotel, so score on that one. We stayed at the lovely Mosquito Boutique Hotel in the historic Colonial Zone of the city. It was too early to check in, so we left our bags in the hotel’s laundry room and set out in search of lunch. We ended up at Buche Perico about a block and a half away and had an amazing lunch. After lunch, we went for a walk about town looking to learn a little of the history and tour some museums and ruins (often the same thing). We were thwarted at a couple of places, including the Fort, because they were closed in preparation for some big upcoming event. Alas! We did, however, get to tour the palatial home of Christopher Columbus’s eldest son. We stumbled upon a free Taino artisans’ exhibition. The Taino were the indigenous peoples of Hispaniola when the Spanish arrived and enslaved them, almost wiping out their entire population. I wish I knew more Spanish so I could have picked up more of their history. There was a man making pots, another sculpting figurines of their various gods from clay, and another grinding chocolate (which we could taste). There were women displaying and selling their knit and woven goods. There was food to sample. It was a great find!

Late afternoon we returned to the hotel to finally check in, shower and rest for a bit before meeting down in the hotel bar for drinks before dinner. Dinner was at Jalao, right next door to where we’d had lunch along a little park. I had a traditional Dominican dish called mofongo, which I’d been wanting to try. It is a mashed plantain base with spices served with spiced pork and beef, in my case. Delicious! Now I want to learn to make it. It was a beautiful evening sitting outside eating. It reminded me of eating late on Piazza Navona in Rome.  We all slept well that night.

We met for breakfast in the hotel atrium the next morning. The atrium was gorgeous! It was open to the sky and surrounded by the walls of the rooms (door sides opening toward atrium), laundry room, bar, entryway and reception, and the building next door. It was filled with potted plants, a fountain, a tree, and vines dangling down from the railings of the walkways along the rooms of the second and third floors. Breakfast was included in the room price and consisted of eggs cooked to order, fresh fruit juice of choice, toast, and fresh fruit and coffee or tea. Since checkout wasn’t until noon, we had time after breakfast to tour the nearby Cathedral of Santa María la Menor. It is the first and oldest Catholic church in the Americas, constructed between 1504 and 1550. It is a lovely and still functioning Gothic-style cathedral belonging to the Archdiocese of Santo Domingo. From the cathedral, we returned to the hotel to check out, put our bags in the car, and trotted across the street to a ruin we had seen upon our arrival. It was the remains of the first hospital in the Americas, dating from 1503. The current ruins are unlikely to have much of that original hospital left as the structures there were rebuilt and repurposed several times. We gave it a quick view, then hopped back in the car.

We headed to the outskirts of the city in search of the national park called Los Tres Ojos (the Three Eyes). What a gem in the city! It’s a cave mostly open to the sky with three lakes below ground level. It is believed to have formed over 10,000 years ago, at the end of the ice age, when the ceiling collapsed. They’ve done a great job constructing paths and landscaping to guide visitors to the lakes. One lake is reached by a small, rectangular wooden ferry that seats about 10 people and is pulled across by a “driver” on a pulley & rope system. It was a lovely bit of nature in the city.

It was then time to head back to Luperón. The trip back took a little longer because we missed a U-turn on their completely divided highway that would have taken us in the direction we needed to go. There are only certain points along the highway around the Santo Domingo area that allow one to reverse direction. We ended up having to go back through the city rather than around it, and there was quite a bit of traffic. Eventually we were on the open road. When we got hungry, we stopped at one of the dozens of roadside comedores. These are small roadside, family-run cafes, open to the road, with small kitchens, limited menus, and all local food. It was good and inexpensive, but they had the music up way too loud. We made another quick stop at a combination liquor/grocery store for some rum and were back in Luperón by 6pm. We spent Friday onboard recovering from our whirlwind exploration.

Here’s a slide show of some pictures from our Santo Domingo trip. I took way too many and had to spend hours weeding them out. When will I learn? Enjoy the pictures. Until next time, stay safe and take care of each other!