Recently, it was announced that Santo Domingo?s Colonial Zone will get a 30 million dollar facelift. These funds will be dispersed by the Dominican Ministry of Tourism along with the Inter-American Development Bank and will go mainly to improving the streets, plazas and other public spaces, underground power lines and surveillance, as well as restoring the neighborhood?s attractions. Basically, the city is scrambling to prepare for a large influx of Punta Cana tourists with the now completed Coral Highway. Whether any of these improvements take place remains to be seen but I am always hopeful for la Zona Colonial.
This week I took our tour to the Capital from Punta Cana with a group of about 20 individuals. I sometimes take the excursions we sell, incognito, to ensure our clients are receiving the quality my company expects. Since I no longer live in the capital and visit maybe a couple times every few months, I was able to enjoy the tour of the Colonial Zone as just another tourist. On this day, much of how I felt about the Zona was solidified.
We all know the Zona Colonial is in dire need of this proposed facelift. There?s trash everywhere, lighting is an issue, safety is a concern, the buildings need to be refurbished or painted, there are horrible smells, lack of tourist information, etc, etc. We can bad mouth the Colonial Zone as much as we want but there is one thing the Zona Colonial has that no one can deny; the Zona has character. Those 16 square blocks ooze with character and local customs like nowhere else in the Dominican Republic. If you want a true example of Dominican culture, all you have to do is stroll the streets of the Zona where you?ll find a genuine slice of what life is like in the Dominican Republic: men discussing politics in a local barbershop, women discussing other people in a salon, families enjoying time together, colmados blasting merengue and bachata, children playing hula-hoop, shoe shine boys hungry for business, the night workers and the guys who sit on El Conde who only visit to solicit night workers, the hawkers, the tourists, the guy who sells fruit, the guy who asks you for money, the stray dogs, the crumbling edifices with clothing left to dry on the balcony, the modern apartments and expensive hotels, the comedores where everyone is enjoying their ?plato del d?a?, the pastry shops who churn out Dominican sweets, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, someone peeing on the street, someone throwing trash on the street, romantic ambar-colored street lights, stolen man-hole covers, nightlife spots that range from preppy, to bohemian, to homosexual and a narrative of half a millennium as the one place where all modern history in the Western Hemisphere can be traced back to.
Santo Domingo?s Colonial Zone is everything we love and hate about the Dominican Republic. It?s how I respond to all our clients when I get the common question: ?Where can I go to experience the real Dominican Republic.? Answer: the Colonial Zone.
Only on this day, as our tour group walked down Calle El Conde and I gave that same answer to a young woman from Romania, she looked around and said: ?But it?s so dirty?. To which I responded: ?And we wouldn?t have it any other way.?
This week I took our tour to the Capital from Punta Cana with a group of about 20 individuals. I sometimes take the excursions we sell, incognito, to ensure our clients are receiving the quality my company expects. Since I no longer live in the capital and visit maybe a couple times every few months, I was able to enjoy the tour of the Colonial Zone as just another tourist. On this day, much of how I felt about the Zona was solidified.
We all know the Zona Colonial is in dire need of this proposed facelift. There?s trash everywhere, lighting is an issue, safety is a concern, the buildings need to be refurbished or painted, there are horrible smells, lack of tourist information, etc, etc. We can bad mouth the Colonial Zone as much as we want but there is one thing the Zona Colonial has that no one can deny; the Zona has character. Those 16 square blocks ooze with character and local customs like nowhere else in the Dominican Republic. If you want a true example of Dominican culture, all you have to do is stroll the streets of the Zona where you?ll find a genuine slice of what life is like in the Dominican Republic: men discussing politics in a local barbershop, women discussing other people in a salon, families enjoying time together, colmados blasting merengue and bachata, children playing hula-hoop, shoe shine boys hungry for business, the night workers and the guys who sit on El Conde who only visit to solicit night workers, the hawkers, the tourists, the guy who sells fruit, the guy who asks you for money, the stray dogs, the crumbling edifices with clothing left to dry on the balcony, the modern apartments and expensive hotels, the comedores where everyone is enjoying their ?plato del d?a?, the pastry shops who churn out Dominican sweets, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, someone peeing on the street, someone throwing trash on the street, romantic ambar-colored street lights, stolen man-hole covers, nightlife spots that range from preppy, to bohemian, to homosexual and a narrative of half a millennium as the one place where all modern history in the Western Hemisphere can be traced back to.
Santo Domingo?s Colonial Zone is everything we love and hate about the Dominican Republic. It?s how I respond to all our clients when I get the common question: ?Where can I go to experience the real Dominican Republic.? Answer: the Colonial Zone.
Only on this day, as our tour group walked down Calle El Conde and I gave that same answer to a young woman from Romania, she looked around and said: ?But it?s so dirty?. To which I responded: ?And we wouldn?t have it any other way.?