NORTH COAST — THINGS TO SEE AND DO
The gateway to the northern coast of the Dominican Republic is the provincial town of Puerto Plata, whose population is less than 300,000 residents. One tourist-friendly site in that town is the Spanish colonial Fortaleza San Felipe, which was built in the 16th century and was used as a prison under Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship during the 1950s.
During the 1980s, Puerto Plata, which had its own airport, used it to attract budget tourists from Canada and Western Europe who stayed at the all-inclusive resorts in that area. Puerto Plata Airport also served the provincial city of Santiago, which was a one-hour drive away (but didn’t have its own large international airport at the time).
Aside from the Spanish colonial fortress and nearby beach resorts, Puerto Plata was known for two distinct things: one was the “Teleférico”. This Italian-made tram car, built in 1975 and carries 17 passengers, offering them a panoramic view of the Puerto Plata region. The Teleférico climbs over 2,500 feet to the top of a mountain called Pico Isabel de Torres (the highest point of Puerto Plata) and has a botanical garden and a replica statue of Christ the Redeemer (the famed statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).
The other thing that Puerto Plata is known for is rum. The city is home to the major Dominican rum label “Brugal” (started there by Catalonian Spanish immigrant Andrés Brugal in 1888). Even though the Brugal label was bought by the Scottish distilling firm, The Edrington Group, in 2008, the rum is still produced in Puerto Plata (at Av. Luís Ginebra in the town’s outskirts). The Brugal factory offers visitors free tours on an ongoing basis Monday thru Friday 9:00 am to noon and 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm. The tour guides are multilingual and will cater to each group according to need.
These days, because much of the all-inclusive tourist traffic has headed to the Punta Cana/Bávaro beach area of the island, the tourist presence in the Puerto Plata area is not as prominent as it once was during the 1980s (explaining the lower prices for rooms within the resorts currently operating there, such as