A reader has requested that I end my blogging from DR with a detailed description of the departure lounge and the flight back. Maybe they’re just very bored. (I nearly wrote “boring”). Writing up the flight might be tricky as I hope to be asleep for most of it. But here we go with a…

With one day to go before my flight home from Punts Cana, it was time to start the journey back from the lovely northwest coast. And “time” in this case means the five hours it took to get from Puerto Plata to my hotel in Santo Domingo, bus and taxi. The scenery is fantastic, but…

Another trip today. I had an excursion booked with a company called Outback Adventures, who take you out to a number of rural communities to show you something of the way of life out in the hills and the fields of this beautiful island. Outback Adventures provide financial support to the people we meet –…

As you’re aware, I am trying to take opportunities to break away from the comfortable self-contained world of the foreign tourist’s gated resort, with its sanitised notions of tropical “paradise”. For today’s authentic experience, I spent the day alongside some of the Dominicans who are employed in the tourism industry, the country’s biggest money earner…

I rushed the guards at the front gate and managed to temporarily escape the resort for an afternoon. And so I joined a half-day tour of the nearby city of Puerto Plata. Warning; this tour begins with a visit to the Macorix rum distillery. There were a number of tastings. Please treat the following account…

I told you I was going all-inclusive at some point, didn’t I? Puerto Plata, on DR’s north coast, is the country’s oldest resort. There is a real town here, with some significant history. But up here, on the sandy but windy Playa Dorada, it’s all about the AI meal plan. I hope to show you…

I’m now on the bus out of Santo Domingo and onto my next stop, so it’s time to go through my gallery and drag out any photos we haven’t seen yet…The old town is separated from the sea by Santo Domingo’s own Malecon, maybe not as famous as Havana’s. Near-impossible to cross during the day…

Lunch at one of the restaurants lining the Plaza de Espana, on the banks of the functional Ozama river. To the left, the 16th century Alcazar de Colón, the home of one of the first governors of Hispaniola. Very good! You’re right. Spanish speakers do know Christopher Columbus as Christobel Colón. But not so fast.…

…and survived. Very safe. The Zona Colonial dates back to 1494, only two years after Christopher Columbus arrived on the beautiful island. Airbnb is blamed for many things, but at least they would have thrown this particular Italian traveller off the site for his behaviour in resort, like claiming the whole resort for the Spanish…

As the high walls of the old city loomed above us, my taxi edged ever closer to my lodging at the end of its two-hour drive from the airport. The tropical sun continued to descend out of the afternoon Caribbean sky as we turned into the narrow, stifling streets of the Zona Colonial itself, the…