Santo Domingo

Traveling to the Caribbean in summer is a crap shoot. Last year, I was caught by Hurricane Issac in Puerto Rico, but this summer in the Dominican Republic the weather was amazing every day. While most tourists skip the capitol city of Santo Domingo, it does offer a beautiful colonial center worthy of a few days. I stayed in a 16th century convent one block from the main pedestrian artery; Calle el Conde. Here are a few of the architectural highlights.

In many places the old city walls of Santo Domingo have been rebuilt using modern cement. Still, a lot of what remains in the Zona Colonial remains original. My first meal of Chivo en linea al fuego was on a beautiful colonial plaza; Plaza Colon. My second dinner was at Adrian Tropical. After reading rave reviews, I was a little disappointed with both the restaurant (for lack of authentic cuisine) and my dinner selection of Guinea Fowl. My dinner had too much sauce and not enough fowl. By the way, If you ever find yourself eating Guinea you should eat it with your fingers no matter how messy things get.

Those who know me know that I am never an alarmist, but I was pretty disappointed with the security situation of Boca Chica. First, the road into Boca Chica had a police roadblock (a la shakedown). And while the police eventually let me go sans bribe, they were still pleading how “thirsty” they were; meaning I was supposed to buy them something to drink.  Second, after stopping at the beach for about 5 minutes in a heavily populated area, some trim on my rental car disappeared in plain sight of dozens of people; an insurance headache more than anything.


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