Santo Domingo, the city of firsts

4hrs drive south from Cabarete, on the south coast of Hispaniola island is where Cristobal Colón and his mates decided to set foot and create a base to conquer the rest of the Americas. Colón was quite lost because he thought he was in India… ooops! but he really liked the place because on his request, his remains rest in this city. Another interesting fact is the name of the city…apparently they got there on a Sunday, so they were very creative and called it Santo Domingo.

This city was the first in the “New World” to have a cathedral, and the first to have a paved street (Calle de las Damas), so the ladies could go on their promenades without ruining their fancy dresses. It’s probably the place with the highest concentration of churches per sqm.

1st cathedral in the ‘New world’ and Cristobal Colon statue

We have found Santo Domingo to have an incredible heritage (recognised by Unesco); unfortunately, resources are scarce and the surroundings are not very well maintained or clean. Check out the electricity cables!

As we wandered around we also came across a media event of the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano… guys handed out tshirts and caps to the random people at the square, yelled a few over-excited promises on the microphones and shook hands with the plebes in front of the cameras… exactly the same that we’re used to in Spain and Australia…

However, Santo Domingo is a lively and colourful city, where people gather in the streets for a game of chess and keep some old traditions alive, like the shoe-polishers in front of our hotel.

Fede, we thought about you when we saw this ´blue´ vespa!

The last walk around the city took us to what used to be Colón’s place in Sto.Domingo… He might have had some enemies around as the place is a real fortress!

In the next post we’ll cover our trip to Cuba, hasta pronto!