I left the DR on their Independence Day. It was obvious a big celebration was planned. I left before the sun was up but it promised to be quite a part. They gave us these lollipops at the plane.
Christopher Columbus reached the island of Hispañola on his first voyage, in December 1492. On Columbus’s second voyage in 1493 the island became a colony and what would become Santo Domingo became the new capital, and remains the oldest continuously inhabited European city in the Americas. Columbus lived in what would become the Dominican Republic and believed that he was a missionary. He stayed and was buried there and his son was the first governor. The DR claims that his body is in a burial site there although another country also claims that honor. His burial site in the DR is a light house that casts a light in the form of a cross into the sky.
The path to independence from Haiti was long and bloody but people still speak of Columbus as a missionary that brought Christ.
