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By
Dr. Lynne Guitar (2001; revised
2004)
Dr. Lynne Guitar's
Resume
Mercado Modelo
(Model Market)
This extensive market
on the north side of Avenida Mella
in between Santomé and Sánchez
streets is popular with both tourists
and locals. When it was built in the
1940s (the designer was Guido D’Alessandro,
an Italian architect who also designed
the Presidential Palace), this was
the outskirts of urban Santo Domingo!
Inside are two levels of stalls selling
the most popular arts and crafts of
the country, as well as lots of colorful
imports from Haiti, South and Central
America, and Asia, that vendors attempt
to pass off as Dominican. Best bargains
are the maracas, tamboras (drums)
and güiras (musical scrapers),
baskets, amber and larimar jewelry,
ceramic dolls, colorful paintings,
wooden sculptures, spices, vanilla,
rum, mamajuana (an herb-and-spice
mixture in which you steep vodka or
rum for a tasty drink that Dominicans
say cures hangovers and gives extra
energy, especially to men--it is the
local version of Viagra), coffee,
cigarettes and cigars. Best advice
for market-goers is not to buy anything
that does not have a price tag, and
to bargain down to approximately half
of the price on the tag, which is
closer to the “real” price--if
you’re a very good bargainer
or are buying many things from the
same vendor, you can get an even bigger
discount. You’ll also find botánicos
at the marketplace, shops that sell
religious candles, perfumes and incense,
sculptures and photos of the saints,
and various other products used by
Dominicans for their household altars
and by brujos (spell casters) to bring
love, luck, wealth, and good health.
They make unique gifts, especially
the aerosol cans of blessings. Behind
and beside the Mercado Modelo are
flower shops, tobacco vendors, basketry
shops, fruit and vegetable vendors....
The market and its environs are lively
and colorful, a dynamic crossroads
where the countryside and the city
meet.
Faro a Colón
(Columbus Lighthouse)
“To Castile
and to León, a New World gave
Colón,” reads the plaque
dedicating the Columbus Lighthouse.
The cross-shaped design of the building
is the result of a contest held in
1931. The winning designer was a 24-year-old
Scotsman named Joseph L. Gleave. The
lighthouse symbolizes the coming of
Christianity to the “heathen
Indians” and initially was to
be built for the 450th anniversary
of Columbus’s first voyage to
the Americas, but was too expensive
to build. Construction was finally
begun in 1986. The completed monument
was inaugurated by the Pope in October
of 1992. President Joaquín
Balaguer insisted on building the
lighthouse and on completing it in
time for the Columbian Quincentennial.
According to the press, it cost more
than US$20 million, ironic in such
an undeveloped country. Its laser-lit
cross is so bright that it can be
seen for more than 50 miles--in a
city where most neighborhoods suffer
from lengthy and frequent power blackouts.
The lighthouse’s cost and the
removal of thousands of poor people
and their homes to clear space for
it and its surrounding park were (and
remain) the subjects of vociferous
complaints. For the 1992 grand opening,
Columbus’s remains and the 19th-century
monument built to hold them in the
Cathedral (designed by Fernando Romeo)
were moved to the Faro a Colón,
where the Pope held the inaugural
Mass; note, however, that Havana,
Cuba. and Seville, Spain, also claim
to have Columbus’s remains.
Parque Nacional
de los Tres Ojos (“Three Eyes”
National Park)
This national park
features a series of natural caves
with vividly colored lakes like some
Europeans’ “ojos”
(eyes). Natural chemicals dissolved
in the water provide the coloring.
Three of the “eyes” are
interconnected because they are within
the same ancient sinkhole; a fourth,
and the most beautiful, can be reached
by a surface pathway or by paying
for the optional raft ride across
the third lake. Note that the Taínos
never lived in these or other caves
on the island, no matter what the
tour guides tell you. Their ancestors
were far advanced over cave dwellers
before they emigrated from the mainland.
They did use caves, however, for religious
ceremonies and trainings, as burial
sites, and as refuges from hurricanes—also,
later, as refuges from Spaniards.
Tres Ojos was used as a filming site
for several old Tarzan movies and
is a popular site today where both
locals and tourists enjoy its exotic
natural beauty.
El Acuario
(Aquarium)
At the junction of
26 de Enero and Avenida de España,
along the route between the capital
and Las Americas Airport, is the National
Aquarium, an educational/scientific
exhibition of the island’s marine
life—all kinds of fish, turtles,
and invertebrates. Always a hit with
children, tourists visiting the aquarium
will find themselves in among laughing,
chattering groups of Dominican school
children, which in itself is worth
the visit. Everybody’s favorite
exhibit is the giant aquarium with
a tunnel underneath, where you can
look up and around, feeling as if
you’re inside, swimming with
the sharks, graceful rays, and other
colorful occupants.
Palacio Presidencial
y Gazcue (Presidential Palace &
Gazcue Neighborhood)
The three-story Italian
Renaissance building called the Presidential
Palace, which dominates the large
block of land in Gazcue encompassed
by Avenida Mexico, 30 del Marzo, Doctor
Delgado, and Manuel Ma. Castillo streets,
was built in the 1940s under Trujillo’s
orders to resemble the U.S. Congressional
Building, which, in turn, was inspired
by the Pantheon in Athens, Greece.
The designer was Guido D’Alessandro,
an Italian architect; it was inaugurated
on August 2, 1947. The Presidential
Palace is not a residence. It houses
the working offices of the Dominican
president and his staff. The neighborhood
of Gazcue was the upper-class residential
area of the capital through the 1960s.
It is renowned for its distinctive
homes, which include one especially
strange one right near the Presidential
Palace (northwest corner of Dr. Delgado
and the junction of Castillo and Moíses
de García streets), the Casa
de Troncos (Log House), whose portico
consists of twisting cement “trees.”
Jardines
Botánicos (Botanical Gardens)
In the north-central
quadrant of the city, on Avenida de
los Próceres in between Avenida
de Argentina and Avenida Jardín
Botánico, are the capital’s
beautiful Botanical Gardens. You can
take the guided trolley tour or walk
through the 2,000,000-square-meters
of gardens, graced by acres and acres
of native Royal Palms. Especially
recommended are the Orchid Garden
and the magnificent Japanese Garden.
Bird watchers will delight in the
many species that live, either permanently
or temporarily while migrating to
other locales, in the peaceful botanical
park, which protects a vast area of
virgin tropical rainforest. In a recent
survey of national parks around the
world, Santo Domingo’s Botanical
Gardens were ranked among the top
10.
El Zoológico
(Zoo)
Santo Domingo’s
Zoo is one of the largest and most
beautiful in Latin America. It is
located in the north-central quadrant
of the capital, on Paseo de los Reyes
Católicos just west of Avenida
Máximo Gómez. Among
the exotic animals on display are
both types of iguanas that are native
to the island, and island flamingos.
Plaza de
la Cultura (Cultural Plaza)
Built during the
Trujillo era, the beautifully landscaped
Cultural Plaza located in the large
block along César Nicolás
Pensón and Avenida Pedro Henríquez
Ureña streets, in between Avenida
Máximo Gómez and Feliz
M. del Monte, unites the National
Theatre, National Library, and national
museums, including the fascinating
Museum of Dominican Man, with its
extensive collection of native Taíno
artifacts and library dedicated to
Dominican culture, the Museum of Modern
Art, Museum of History & Geography
(the Trujillo Room is excellent),
and Museum of Natural History.
El Obelisco
y el Monumento Trujillo-Hull (The
Obelisk and Trujillo-Hull Monuments)
This pair of obelisks
just outside the Zona Colonial on
George Washington Boulevard (also
known as the Malecón) has an
interesting history. The one to the
east, modeled after the Washington
Monument, was built to commemorate
the city’s name change from
Santo Domingo to Ciudad Trujillo in
1937 (it was changed back to Santo
Domingo after Trujillo’s assassination
in 1961). From start to finish, construction
of the obelisk took only 17 days!
Just across the street is the building
that housed Trujillo’s political
party. Ironically, today the monument
is the “canvas” for a
colorful four-sided mural of the Mirabal
Sisters, who were assassinated by
Trujillo’s henchmen for speaking
out against his dictatorship. The
westernmost obelisk was erected in
1947 to commemorate the signing of
the Trujillo-Hull Treaty, which acknowledged
the full payment of the Dominican
Republic’s external debt and
the return of control over the country’s
customs house. Because of their shapes,
the two obelisks are locally known
as the male obelisk and the female
obelisk—once you see them, you
won’t have to ask which is which.
El Malecón.
This beautiful, wide
boulevard is officially labeled on
maps as George Washington Boulevard,
but everyone calls it the Malecón.
It runs for several miles along the
Caribbean Sea, flanked by some of
the city’s finest hotels and
restaurants. On the sea side of the
boulevard, you’ll find wide
sidewalks, graceful cement benches,
small parks, and a colorful variety
of street vendors, as well as more
established restaurants and bars.
Once there was a popular swimming
area, the Playa Guibia, here, but
contaminants sweeping down the Río
Ozama and carried past the little
beach by ocean currents have long
relegated Guibia to a place where
everyone likes to watch the waves
rolling in—but nobody dares
swim there anymore. Farsighted politicians
like Ramón Pérez Martínez
would like to renovate the entire
Malecón area. He has plans
to clean up the pollutants, build
breakwaters and beaches, yacht basins,
and new seaside parks. Meanwhile,
if you can overlook the garbage, the
Malecón is a wonderful place
to stroll or go jogging. There are
frequent cultural festivals and concerts
along the Malecón, and in February,
it’s where two huge parades
take place: the Independence Day Parade
(February 27), and the Carnaval parade
(date varies from year to year, but
is always on a Sunday in late February
or early March), where costumed Dominicans
from all over the island compete to
gain prizes for having the best comparsas
(floats), and individuals march up
and down in traditional costumes—and
some modern, outlandish ones as well.
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