!!!Dominican Republic

Photography by Dmitriy Moiseenko,
member of the [AirPano Team|Geography/About/Consortium/AirPano,_Team] that is a member of the [global-geography Consortium|Geography/About/Consortium]. \\

12 March 2012

with kind permission of [AirPano|http://www.AirPano.com]

The island of Hispaniola (Haiti) located in the Caribbean Sea is a home
to two independent countries. One of them, as you might have already
guessed, is Haiti, and another one is the Dominican Republic. Despite
the proximity, these countries are as different as night and day.

The island was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492 and was named
Hispaniola. Prior to such discovery, the island was populated by
peaceful indigenous people from the mainland. The life on the island was
completely changed with the arrival of the Europeans. By that time local
Pacific inhabitants just learned how to work with metal, so it was hard
for them to withstand the attacks of civilized and aggressive newcomers.

As a result, the island of Hispaniola was split into two uneven parts:
the French occupied about 30% of the western territory, which is the
Republic of Haiti now; and about 70% of the eastern part became a
Spanish colony.

Over the next several hundreds of years, the island has seen many wars,
including an incredibly bloody riot of Haitian slaves of 1791-1803.
During the riot, the Haitians robbed several cities in the eastern part
of the island and killed almost the entire local population. These
events marked the beginning of an ongoing deep hostility between the
people of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which was founded in 1844.

[{Image src='01_Pirates ship.jpg' caption='Pirates ship' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='600'}]

While their neighbor country is still being torn by wars, riots, civil
unrest, hunger, disease outbreaks and natural disasters, the Dominican
Republic may be described as "heaven on earth".

Millions of tourists cannot be wrong about that. Just look at the
weather in the Dominican Republic! The eternal summer here is very
comfortable and mild. The island has several large resorts with almost
ideal conditions for a relaxed vacation. By the way, speaking of the
Caribbean hotels — the Dominican Republic has the record number of
hotels. Thousands of tourists are coming here by large cruise ships. One
of these ships can be found on our panorama. It is the Costa Atlantica,
which belongs to the company that owns the well known Costa Concordia
partially sank on the night of 13 January 2012 after hitting a reef off
the Italian coast.

Beaches of the Dominican Republic are its "calling card". Coral reefs
are quite common in the Caribbean, but the most beautiful ones are in
the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic stands out because of its
virgin nature, clean rivers, unique culture, plenty of historical
monuments, including those on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

[{Image src='02_Carribean paradise.jpg' caption='Carribean paradise' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='600'}]

Coming back to our comparison of two neighboring countries: the photos
of Haiti mostly show destroyed buildings and hungry children, while the
typical photos from the Dominican Republic feature white-sand beaches,
blue sea, incredible architecture, vivid colors of nature and always
smiling local people. We invite you to enjoy this "heaven on earth".

\\ \\
[11 Panoramas of Dominican Republic|Geography/America/Dominican_Republic/Pictures/Panoramas_of_Dominican_Republic]










[{SET customtitle='Dominican Republic (AP)'}]  

[{Metadata Suchbegriff=' ' Kontrolle='Nein'}]