January 28. 

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

We had a great walk through Old Town today. 

The Museum de las Casas Reales.

is on the many shipwrecks that have happened around the Dominican Republic. The most famous of those being the Santa Maria which had Christopher Columbus at the helm. He traveled here after discovering the island of Salvador.

I didn't know that Mercury was brought in great quantities from Europe to add to the gold.  Mercury acts like a magnet to gold in digging and processing, it is then evaporated with heat. Hmmm, what does all that Mercury setting at the bottom of the ocean do to that area.

The first Cathedral in The Americas. The skill it took to build all those arches is unfathomable to a simple little girl like me.

{Our friend Valentina was pleasantly surprised that many of the plaques were written in English and Russian.  Apparently, before the war, there were many tourists from Russia. (Valentina immigrated from Russia in the 80's. She and her x-husband were both engineers. They worked at Xerox.)}

The first house in the Americas

We ran into some Jehovah Witness missionaries.

There were a great number of police on the scene everywhere we went. You could tell that they were there to make sure all had a safe and secure experience in Santo Domingo. They were very friendly and helpful.

All in all we saw that most people were very happy.