SANTO DOMINGO, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC part 1

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic: Authentic Stimuli for all the
Senses Awaits Visitors to the Oldest City in the New World

By Steve Wright


You were promised a bilingual driver in a luxury car.

You are picked up in a Mercedes – albeit one with bald tires and a severely cracked windshield – by a driver who, unimpressed with your command of Spanish, pops in a homemade tape of Billy Joel and REM songs to shut you up.

You fly along a dimly lit highway that hugs the deep black, barely moonlit waters of the Atlantic Ocean. You arrive on a street so quiet on a Friday night, that you wonder if the neighborhood is safe.

Your driver tosses down your bags and you are banging on a castle-size set of doors, praying that as the hour passes 10, that someone is on the other side and they have a room waiting for you.

If this kind of entry into an impoverished Caribbean nation gives you chills, stop now and book a trip to a soulless all-inclusive that will homogenize your island experience to the point where you'll forget whether you're in Jamaica or St. Johns.

If your heart pulses for excitement in a largely safe, but challenging and exciting city -- come along. A 50-something Spaniard sporting a raggedy gray mane of hair and satiny soccer pants has opened the door to Dona Elvira, our base of operations for 48 hours in the oldest city in the Americas.

Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, is so authentic, it will make you forget that far too many ports in the Atlantic have been dulled down to cruise ship-friendly rows of T-shirt shops and worse.

The Zona Colonial, where the lovely Dona Elvira is located, has its tourist traps and post card shacks. But the beauty is that the touristy stuff is the exception, not the rule.

Skip the fake Haitian starving artist galleries and sink into a real experience at a colmado -- a little corner shop. They are at almost every intersection. They still stock groceries, but as smallish supermarkets have taken hold, the little markets have transformed into social centers.

Throughout the day, people escape the sun and humidity for the shaded respite of the open air colmado. Presidente, the Dominican beer available in the states -- but somehow 10 times icier and fresher on the island -- is the beverage of choice.

Presidente also flows like water at the dozens of open air cafes that tumble over the rocky coast cliffs along the Malecon. At night, the neon-lit cafes tempt you with the scent of pollo o pescada ala plancha -- chicken or fish on the grill -- and sounds of happy people staring out into the vast, midnight blue ocean.

Most cafes spill over a half dozen levels of the rock they are built on, making for lots of little coves for everything from clusters of lovers to plotters. Surviving the dangerous crossing of the racetrack (there are perhaps two crossings guarded by traffic lights) -- that is a roadway between the Zona Colonial and Malecon is a life-affirming accomplishment that makes the cerveza taste all the better.