Trip Advice for Santo Domingo and the Dominican Republic

Posted on May 11, 2014 by Åsa Giertz under My Travels

I rarely write up travel tips, mainly because I travel mostly for work and it’s not my role to evaluate establishments when there for professional purposes. But since I went on vacation this time, I thought I’d give some advice. I traveled by myself this time, and therefore opted to stay in Santo Domingo as I thought it would be easier to find things to do there. I wanted to spoil myself a bit this time so I stayed at Boutique Hotel Palacio in Zona Colonial, i.e. the old part of Santo Domingo. Hostels are probably the best places to stay when traveling alone because it is easy to meet people there, but Hotel Palacio seem to attract a lot of Americans my age, so I did meet people to go out with. The hotel was a little pricy compared to most other places here (although cheap compared to the US or Western Europe) but I chose it because it looked quite genuine and had a roof top pool. And I really liked staying here! It was perfect to have the pool to come back to after sightseeing tours around town. The only thing was that breakfast wasn’t included in the price of my room, and they only had quite expensive offers which didn’t match the price, so I went out for breakfast instead severals days. Can recommend Cafe Paco Cabana just around the corner: french inspired pastry with good coffee and a variety of fresh juices.

The hotel arranged for someone to pick me up at the airport for 40 dollars. Quite expensive but I checked with a colleague who travels here for work and he recommended arranging airport transport prior to arrival said US$ 40 was pretty standard. However, a group of guys at my hotel took a cab for 30 dollars directly from the airport and that seemed to work fine.

There are a lot of licensed guides around offering their services. I never hired someone but it seemed like a lot of people did. The guys at my hotel hired a guide with a car who took them around town also at night, and then dropped them off at the airport their last day. I talked a bit with the guide and he said he preferred working with Americans because of the tip, so it seems like tip is expected. Otherwise, tip is often included in the check at restaurants.

To be honest, I didn’t really go out to eat to any places that i would recommend, except for Cafe Paco Cabana El Conde and another pastry, also on El Cone, on the block after Calle Arz. Merino, but that I can’t remember the name of. I booked my boat trip with Colonial Tours (office on C/Arz. Merino 209) and they were really helpful except that they forgot to tell me to wear bathing clothes when getting on the boat as the first dip in the water was directly from the boat. Our tour guide didn’t mention this either and was, to be honest, not super friendly. Like I wrote earlier, the tour was more free drinks in plastic cups and lots of people trying to sell things at the beach, than an experience of the Nature Reserve but in it was a good way for me to get out of the city since most tours have pick up outside Santo Domingo.

I managed to see most sites in Santo Domingo that were indicated in my guidebook, including Casas Reales, El Alcazar de Colón, El Pantheon, and Cathedral Primada Americas. Entrance fees were around 100 pesos (2 dollars) and it included an audio guide in all places except for the Pantheon. My favorite was by far the Cathedral. It was so peaceful and so full of history, including as a place for slaves to meet and organize themselves. My guidebook wrote that el Alcazar de Colón, the vice royals residence Governing House from the 1500s, was the no 1 place to see, but I would recommend taking time to see the Cathedral.

Needless to say, I found people really nice! But then again, I normally do. It’s probably possible to manage in Santo Domingo without speaking Spanish, but knowing the basics certainly helps. I went to several bookstores (of course, as the bookaholic I am!) and I couldn’t even find a guidebook in English.

As for me, I loved my six days in the Dominican Republic! Here are a few more pics (the last is from my hotel):

Louis Emanuel and the Larimar Stones

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Åsa Giertz under My Travels

For me, one of the best things with traveling are all the people I meet. Like yesterday, when I met Louis Manuel who sells jewelry on the corner outside my hotel. He sells the blue larimar stones, which can only be found in the Dominican Republic and since blue is my favorite color, I couldn’t resist browsing a bit when I passed by his stand the other day. I was low on cash and I hadn’t had a chance to withdraw money, and I told him so directly. But we started talking and he told me that he actually goes down in the caves underground to fetch the stones that he makes the jewelry with. I’m not staying long enough this time, but he told me that if I came back, I could go with him to Barahona and get the stones. I asked if it wasn’t dangerous, and he said that it was a little dangerous and that he had two friends who had died in the caves. But, he said, what is life if we don’t live a little dangerous sometimes? True! He told me he had worked with making these jewelers for more than 20 years and since he didn’t have any children himself, he gave some of the proceeds to an orphanage. We talked a bit more about the stones and how they are marked by other minerals, and he gave me a small stone. He asked me to write down my name on a paper and then he wrote it in metal thread with a cutter. I asked if I could pay a little since I did still have a couple of dollars in pesos, but he said it was a gift. Needless to say, I went back the day after and bought a set of larimar jewelry from him. Here is Louis Emanuel in the corner of Calle Conde and Calle Duarte in Santo Domingo:

Fifty Shades of Blue

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Åsa Giertz under My Travels, Uncategorized

Yesterday I took at boat tour to Saona Island, which is part of a national park a few hours away from Santo Domingo. To be honest, it wasn’t the best arranged tour I’ve been on, and it took three and half hours before we even got to the place where the boat picked us up (including a 20-minute stop at a low-quality but expensive souvenir shop with commission for our tour guide). But I forgot all of that as soon as I saw the water! The colors shifted from from turquoise to deep blue and green, and it was warm, calm, and soothing. I was completely hooked and am already planning for my next vacation in the Caribbean: a beach holiday with day tours to towns instead. Here is paradise overload:

Turning Forty in Country Number Forty

Posted on April 27, 2014 by Åsa Giertz under My life, My Travels

So I just turned forty in country number forty for me. Well, at least if I stretch it a bit (and not count Sweden where I was born and grew up). Not my age, that is, but the numbers of countries I’ve been to. A colleague and I recently discussed how one should count the number of countries visited. A stop at an airport is of course a no no. (I have eight of those.) We also agreed that really tiny states such as the principalities and the Vatican don’t really count either, although we made an exception for Monaco. (I have two of these, the Vatican and San Marino, plus Transnistria, Moldova’s break-away region since 20+ years, which isn’t a recognized state although you do need a passport to cross the border.) We also agreed that going by bus or train through a country doesn’t really count unless you stop for coffee or a meal somewhere. And this is where I really bend the rule, because I did have a coffee break at a roadside restaurant some years ago when driving through Kosovo between Macedonia and Montenegro. So technically, I’ve been to more countries than the forty that I count, but I hope that some flexibility can be allowed here to make it even for my birthday!

Where I am? In the Dominican Republic. I always wanted to go to the Caribbean ever since I was a little girl and read adventure books about explorers and pirates, but I’ve never gotten around to go. So what better than to visit the first island that Christopher Columbus set foot on in the Americas? I’m staying in Santo Domingo, which was conquered by the Spanish over 500 years ago, and there is so much history and culture here! Over the next couple of days, I’ll head to the beach and a boat tour to one of the islands. So more pics to come!

Poverty

Posted on March 16, 2014 by Åsa Giertz under My Travels, Our World

You might wonder why I don’t write about poverty after a visit to a country like Malawi. After all, with a per capita GDP of less than 300 dollars per year, Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world. It’s because it is too difficult to capture. I would never be able to explain how it is to meet people who every year faces the possibility of not having enough food during part of the year, of not being able to send their children to school, or even dress them in anything but rags. Or how it is to see a 5 or 6 year-old girl stand alone next to the village road, waving at us as we drive by, and we waving back only to see that she is carrying a baby sibling in a sling on her back. Knowing how capable she obviously is already, and yet how few chances she will have. That she will be lucky to even survive her own pregnancies one day. It just becomes anecdotal and easily sounds like development tourism, and it’s not want I want to communicate here on this blog. Instead, I hope that I can show that things aren’t black and white, and never just poor. That there are nuances to every country and that many of the poorer countries that I’ve been to, including Malawi, are immensely beautiful and rich when it comes to their people, weather it’s because of culture, attitudes, kindness, or food. That in most countries that I work, there are pockets of poverty but also a middle class that are like urbanites in most places. And most importantly that regardless of our economic circumstances, we are all very similar in our believes, wishes, and needs.

I think this picture from my Malawi trip captures that last part. I had been talking to farmers in this village and as we walked to their fields to look at their crops, I had this growing group of children following me around. So I asked if I could take a picture. What I love about this photo is that despite the clothes these kids are in and the chores they would have to take care of after, they act just like kids anywhere. Every one of them has his or her own thing going on, their own little kids secrets, and in other clothes, this could easily be a class photo from an American or European school. Their circumstances might be different, but kids are the same everywhere and they deserve the same chances.

Dedza Pottery and Lodge

Posted on March 16, 2014 by Åsa Giertz under My Travels

After meeting a group of farmers on Saturday, I invited my team for coffee and cheese cake at the Dedza Pottery and Lodge. My Malawian colleague on the team told me about it (including their famous cheesecake) and it was really worth a visit. The grounds hold a cafe that served good coffee and pastry in a beautiful and peaceful environment, along with a ceramic workshop where you can buy goods off the shelf or order personally designed ceramics. I can really recommend a stop for anyone who is traveling through Malawi.

My First Visit to Malawi

Posted on March 15, 2014 by Åsa Giertz under My Travels, On Agriculture and Food

Another journey has come to an end. I write journey and not trip, because most my travel is indeed journeys. I see so much and meet so many people, and I grow every time. Which I guess travel ought to be, but for many end up being more shopping excursions or recuperation on a beach or on a mountain. I put no value in it, I often long for recuperation travel but I always end up on some sort of journey (not counting my series of New York or Stockholm visits, because that’s just home).

This particular journey consisted of two weeks in Malawi. Just like when I went to Rwanda, I was in Malawi to look at risks to the agricultural sector. Over the past two weeks, I have met with farmers, public agricultural institutions, donors, and other participants in the sector, and discussed weather volatilities, price fluctuations, agricultural pests and diseases, unintentional herbicide contamination, crop thefts post harvest and in field, hippos and elephants eating crops and marching through the fields, crocodiles attacking farmers, and probably any other risk that comes to mind. Malawi has gone through periods of food shortages and is therefore more than aware of the devastating impacts that risks can have, yet minimizing the impacts of risks is challenging when most people are subsistence farmers and food and output markets are still in their infancy.

As always, I didn’t do much except working while I was there but since I went around the Central Region to speak to farmers and extension workers, I got to see a bit of the country (though not as much as the rest of my team, who went down South for four days). And Malawi is beautiful! Green flourishing, and hilly in some places and flatter in other. What really struck me is the maize that is grown everywhere. And when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere! Wherever I went and wherever I looked, there was maize. Although it’s a crop that has become popular only over the past century, maize is Malawi’s main staple crop that count for over 50 percent of Malawians diet. Even farmers who specialized in other crops would grow at least a third or so of maize for home consumption. There was even a maize plot in front of my office building in Lilongwe. When I first saw the green, hilly landscape, I immediately thought of wine and I was told at there is indeed some grape production in Malawi. But for now, the hills are covered with maize fields.

I also had a chance to see the magnificent Lake Malawi one afternoon after we had met with cassava growers in the area. So spectacular and yet so peaceful! The people I met were very nice and welcoming, and I am not at all surprised that CNN just named Malawi Africa’s next go-to destination 2014. Malawi is definitely worth visiting! Here are a few pics. More posts to come!

Rwandan Souvenirs

Posted on February 15, 2014 by Åsa Giertz under My Travels, On Books, Movies, Education, and Conferences

I didn’t have much time for shopping in Rwanda but I got a few treats, namely coffee, tea, and books. For me, books and especially novels are the best way to get to know a country except for by living with local families or having really close local friends. All three books were recommended by my Rwandan colleagues: Un dimanche a la piscine a Kigali by Gil Courtemanche; Nous avons le plaisir de vous informer que, demain, nous serons tues avec nos familles by Philip Gourevitch, and; The Strategy of Antelopes: Rwanda after the Genocide, by Jean Hatzfeld. The mix of literature in English in French reflects the languages used in Rwanda today. Kinyarwanda is the local language which is spoken by almost everyone except for a small minority. Despite this, French used to be taught in schools and used in public offices etc. But a few years ago, Rwanda decided to switch to English instead, so most of my meetings there were in English. I did, however, have a few meetings in French in the rural areas and our drivers only spoke French. As for the university educated, younger professionals that I worked with, they were fluent in both French and English, and constantly switched between all three languages. So I thought I should hold myself to the same standard. I will try to read all three books before I to Rwanda again.

Last Photos from Beautiful Rwanda

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Åsa Giertz under My Travels, On Agriculture and Food

It seems like no matter how many pictures I post, I can’t really do Rwanda justice. Nevertheless, here are a few more:

The blankets of green bushes are tea: the closer the bushes, the better the product. Picking is, however, labor intensive so I try to buy fair trade to make sure that also the tea pickers have a somewhat decent salary regardless of where in the world the team comes from. The field in the picture is a cooperative, so hundreds of small farmers own the land together. Above is the most common mode of local transportation of agricultural products – bicycles! I’m often very impressed when I see how much a skilled bicyclist can balance on an unpaved road, but it is also for us to remember how much effort that goes in into the supply chains before some foods reach our tables. The youth dressed in blue are students, and the last picture is of me climbing the hill to meet the coffee farmers.

Rwanda’s Amazing Coffee

Posted on February 8, 2014 by Åsa Giertz under My Travels, On Agriculture and Food

I know that I might seem slightly obsessed with coffee, but I just have to add that Rwanda has amazing coffee! I wish we had such good coffee in DC! We should, since Rwanda exports coffee to Starbucks, but something seems to get lost on the way. My theory is that it has to do with the water quality, but I haven’t been able to confirm this. Nevertheless, I brought both Rwandan tea and coffee with me back to Washington with the hope that it will taste as good as it did in Kigali.

Beautiful view from up on the hills where the coffee is grown // cherries on a coffee tree // pot of coffee on Kigali.

Food and the World

by Åsa Giertz

Category Archives: My Travels