The beauty of Santo Domingo is not something that can be easily seen. In fact, when it comes to first impressions, Santo Domingo fails miserably. Santo Domingo is not a metropolis that reveals its secrets to everyone from the start. You have to go beyond the initial shock you get as you enter into the metropolis for the first time, because the beauty of this metropolis is hidden, only reserved for those willing to take the time to truly discover and explore this metropolis.
After all, few people will deny the fantastically beautiful Plaza de Espa?a with the Alcazar de Colon on the right and the Atarazanas on the left. Few people will deny that the few kilometers that makes up Avenida George Washington (i.e. the malecon) is possibly the most beautiful seaside tropical drive in the world. Few people will deny the subdued beauty of Gazcue and few people will ever deny the elegance of the tree-lined Avenida Winston Churchill.
But, the beauty of Santo Domingo goes beyond the physical, beyond the obvious, beyond the easy to see. Santo Domingo reveals its beauty in other forms that can only be seen if they are experience. The beauty of this metropolis is found in groups of school children in their navy blue uniforms strolling through the roads towards their schools. The beauty is found in the women who enlighten the street scene with their seductive physical beauty tempting even the most loyal husband and family man. The beauty is to be found in an early morning chat with a street sentinel at a local colmado while sipping a shot of delicious Caf? Santo Domingo. The beauty is to be found in the smiles that manage to enlighten the urban landscape. The beauty is to be found in the light brown, blue, or green eyes piercing back at you on an intersection from the face of a beautiful woman staring out the window of a guagua as the bus crosses in front of you from left to right.
Santo Domingo reveals its secrets one at a time to those who are willing to accept them. Where else can you find hundreds of people in the mother of traffic jams turning up the volume of their favorite Latin music while they wait for the traffic to get moving again? Where else can you buy your entire delicious and healthy fruit based breakfast from street vendors who come right up to your car for your ?convenience?? Where else can you actually spend a genuine good time with a person you just met, all for the sake of spending a genuine good time?
Santo Domingo?s beauty goes beyond the popular side. Doing business in this city is not simply about the money, the deal, or the business itself. Business meetings quickly dissolve to personal affairs. Talking about business without talking about the family is almost considered a sin. Walking into a small store without greeting everyone who is there (employees and customers) is considered a mortal sin. Attending a fantastic theatrical performance at the Teatro Nacional while being surrounded by the affluent and powerful and yet, they seem so human and normal in person is an affinity of the other beauty of Santo Domingo.
Santo Domingo reveals itself in a surreal, if not gregarious way for those who are willing to take the time to discover it. One of the most beautiful things of this city are not even things at all, but living and breathing people. They make you wonder why you are so worried about superficial problems. Many of the people here have problems that are beyond belief, and yet, they manage to have a smile, you hear them singing and laughing the tune of merengue or bachata. You see them wearing pleasant clothing, taking care of their appearance, and trying to be as sophisticated as they can be all for the enjoyment of everybody else. Santo Domingo is a truly magical place.
Of course, the realities of Santo Domingo are as varied as the different types of human beings that inhabit this metropolis. The truth is that you will hear different people refer to Santo Domingo in contradicting and different ways, that to the person who has yet to step foot in the oldest European metropolis in the Americas it becomes a bit of a tug of war. Who should you believe? Is it paradise? Is it hell? Is it nice? Is it not nice?
The truth is that Santo Domingo is everything to everyone. It?s the most beautiful and ugliest, the richest and poorest, the most civilized and uncivilized, the cleanest and the dirties, the oldest and the most modern, the most eclectic and most boring, the most bothersome and most loveable, and certainly the most expressive of all metropolises. Santo Domingo is the embodiment of the Dominican spirit into an urban reality. Everything that you see, smell, taste, and experience in this metropolis is the Dominican Republic, the Dominican people, and the Dominican spirit in its most tangible form. Sometimes its ugly and cruel, other times its beautiful and loving, but its always Dominican.
To love Santo Domingo is to love Dominicans, to hate Santo Domingo is to hate Dominicans, but one thing is sure and that is that nobody loves and hates this city to eternity. Each feeling takes its turn, sometimes entire days you end up hating this city and then other days you simply love it. Other times its just in the morning that you hate it and by the time the evening rolls through you are loving it again. Maybe when the power cuts roll through you hate it, then you see how life simply keeps going with people acting as if nothing happen and then you end up loving it. Maybe you hate the fact that the people may be trying to depart you from your hard earned money, but then you see them laughing, dancing, and enjoying their lives that totally makes you feel wonderful and certainly grateful of being part of such a great metropolis.
This is a city of contrasts and contradiction. A city of luxury living and grinding poverty, of foreigners and locals, of modernity and antiquity, of the good and the bad. It?s a city of beautiful wide avenues lined with luxurious tropical trees, of glitzy shopping malls filled with world-class stores, a city chockfull of restaurants offering the palates of the world, and certainly a city of sophistication, culture, and glamour. This is a city that is very tropical in all its manners, but very non-tropical in other ways. It?s a city drenched in consumerism and capitalism, but there is always time for a chat and a midday siesta. This is Santo Domingo in its full glory, a city that holds some of the most life impacting and humble secrets about life and humanity and that secret is the following:
It simply does not matter. That car you worked hard to buy, that job promotion you always wanted, that bonus you desired, that vacation to Rome you dreamed about, all of that simply does not matter. Santo Domingo reminds its citizens and visitors that the only thing that matters is the human spirit and life is not what you have, but what you make of it. So many smiles amidst so many things to not be smiling about, only in a metropolis like Santo Domingo can such contradiction become true.
After all, few people will deny the fantastically beautiful Plaza de Espa?a with the Alcazar de Colon on the right and the Atarazanas on the left. Few people will deny that the few kilometers that makes up Avenida George Washington (i.e. the malecon) is possibly the most beautiful seaside tropical drive in the world. Few people will deny the subdued beauty of Gazcue and few people will ever deny the elegance of the tree-lined Avenida Winston Churchill.
But, the beauty of Santo Domingo goes beyond the physical, beyond the obvious, beyond the easy to see. Santo Domingo reveals its beauty in other forms that can only be seen if they are experience. The beauty of this metropolis is found in groups of school children in their navy blue uniforms strolling through the roads towards their schools. The beauty is found in the women who enlighten the street scene with their seductive physical beauty tempting even the most loyal husband and family man. The beauty is to be found in an early morning chat with a street sentinel at a local colmado while sipping a shot of delicious Caf? Santo Domingo. The beauty is to be found in the smiles that manage to enlighten the urban landscape. The beauty is to be found in the light brown, blue, or green eyes piercing back at you on an intersection from the face of a beautiful woman staring out the window of a guagua as the bus crosses in front of you from left to right.
Santo Domingo reveals its secrets one at a time to those who are willing to accept them. Where else can you find hundreds of people in the mother of traffic jams turning up the volume of their favorite Latin music while they wait for the traffic to get moving again? Where else can you buy your entire delicious and healthy fruit based breakfast from street vendors who come right up to your car for your ?convenience?? Where else can you actually spend a genuine good time with a person you just met, all for the sake of spending a genuine good time?
Santo Domingo?s beauty goes beyond the popular side. Doing business in this city is not simply about the money, the deal, or the business itself. Business meetings quickly dissolve to personal affairs. Talking about business without talking about the family is almost considered a sin. Walking into a small store without greeting everyone who is there (employees and customers) is considered a mortal sin. Attending a fantastic theatrical performance at the Teatro Nacional while being surrounded by the affluent and powerful and yet, they seem so human and normal in person is an affinity of the other beauty of Santo Domingo.
Santo Domingo reveals itself in a surreal, if not gregarious way for those who are willing to take the time to discover it. One of the most beautiful things of this city are not even things at all, but living and breathing people. They make you wonder why you are so worried about superficial problems. Many of the people here have problems that are beyond belief, and yet, they manage to have a smile, you hear them singing and laughing the tune of merengue or bachata. You see them wearing pleasant clothing, taking care of their appearance, and trying to be as sophisticated as they can be all for the enjoyment of everybody else. Santo Domingo is a truly magical place.
Of course, the realities of Santo Domingo are as varied as the different types of human beings that inhabit this metropolis. The truth is that you will hear different people refer to Santo Domingo in contradicting and different ways, that to the person who has yet to step foot in the oldest European metropolis in the Americas it becomes a bit of a tug of war. Who should you believe? Is it paradise? Is it hell? Is it nice? Is it not nice?
The truth is that Santo Domingo is everything to everyone. It?s the most beautiful and ugliest, the richest and poorest, the most civilized and uncivilized, the cleanest and the dirties, the oldest and the most modern, the most eclectic and most boring, the most bothersome and most loveable, and certainly the most expressive of all metropolises. Santo Domingo is the embodiment of the Dominican spirit into an urban reality. Everything that you see, smell, taste, and experience in this metropolis is the Dominican Republic, the Dominican people, and the Dominican spirit in its most tangible form. Sometimes its ugly and cruel, other times its beautiful and loving, but its always Dominican.
To love Santo Domingo is to love Dominicans, to hate Santo Domingo is to hate Dominicans, but one thing is sure and that is that nobody loves and hates this city to eternity. Each feeling takes its turn, sometimes entire days you end up hating this city and then other days you simply love it. Other times its just in the morning that you hate it and by the time the evening rolls through you are loving it again. Maybe when the power cuts roll through you hate it, then you see how life simply keeps going with people acting as if nothing happen and then you end up loving it. Maybe you hate the fact that the people may be trying to depart you from your hard earned money, but then you see them laughing, dancing, and enjoying their lives that totally makes you feel wonderful and certainly grateful of being part of such a great metropolis.
This is a city of contrasts and contradiction. A city of luxury living and grinding poverty, of foreigners and locals, of modernity and antiquity, of the good and the bad. It?s a city of beautiful wide avenues lined with luxurious tropical trees, of glitzy shopping malls filled with world-class stores, a city chockfull of restaurants offering the palates of the world, and certainly a city of sophistication, culture, and glamour. This is a city that is very tropical in all its manners, but very non-tropical in other ways. It?s a city drenched in consumerism and capitalism, but there is always time for a chat and a midday siesta. This is Santo Domingo in its full glory, a city that holds some of the most life impacting and humble secrets about life and humanity and that secret is the following:
It simply does not matter. That car you worked hard to buy, that job promotion you always wanted, that bonus you desired, that vacation to Rome you dreamed about, all of that simply does not matter. Santo Domingo reminds its citizens and visitors that the only thing that matters is the human spirit and life is not what you have, but what you make of it. So many smiles amidst so many things to not be smiling about, only in a metropolis like Santo Domingo can such contradiction become true.