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The Santo Domingo Botanical Garden is a beautiful island of green situated in a sea of concrete.
Santo Domingo Botanical Park
When most people think of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, they come up with visions of blue ocean and white sandy beaches. Because the reason for our visit was largely work-related, we had the opportunity to spend a longer time sharing the city with its nearly 4 million inhabitants.
When walking the streets we found very few tourists. We did find that many of the locals were welcoming and laid back. But this overall attitude does not carry over when there are wheels and a motor involved.
We shared the sidewalk with motorcycles not wanting to fight the street traffic. And found that instead of yielding at stop signs the norm is to beep to warn oncoming traffic that you are heading on through.
A welcome vision of green in the city center of Santo Domingo
With all of this chaos, the soothing expanse of land that has been transformed into a botanical garden was a welcome find.
The Santo Domingo Botanical Garden’s best-known and most popular feature is the Japanese Garden. Wandering to the far end of the park to enjoy the scene there is well worth the walk.
Walkway in the Japanese Garden
Colorful red bridge over pond in the calming Japanese Garden
Tree with impressive above-ground roots in the Japanese Garden
There is also a cactus garden.
Colorful cactus in the Santo Domingo Botanical Park
Several species of bamboo.
Grove of giant bamboo
And areas that are crawling with beautiful vines vying for sunlight.
Vines climbing tree toward the sun
There are also several ponds on the property complete with resident turtles.
Turtle taking a sun and mud bath by the pond
It was a fantastic day and a welcome quiet relaxing day. It was almost making up for the need to walk back, through all of that traffic. Ah well.
Here are some additional stories about travel in Santo Domingo that you might enjoy:
Evelyn
Tuesday 4th of June 2019
Hi, I'm from Santo Domingo DR and I came to the United States 35 years ago. I'm so happy to see other people enjoying and sharing with others the beauty of DR. Thank You:)
christine
Sunday 8th of March 2015
Beautiful garden! I am going to Santo Domingo in June so I will have to check it out.
melody pittman
Wednesday 4th of February 2015
What a lovely article and photos. I have been to quite a few places like this over the past couple of weeks and it just feels so good to be able to admire such beauty in nature. ;)