Dominican_Republic_update.qxd

(Opposite) Passengers aboard this cable car, headed up Mount Isabel de Torres, have a spectacular view of the Puerto Plata region. The Dominican Republic has many mountains and fertile valleys. (Right) The sun beams through a cloud forest in the Armando Bermudez National Park. 1

A Tropical Land of Mountains and Valleys

DURING THE FIRST week of December in 1492, Christopher Columbus, who had spent nearly two months exploring Cuba and other islands in what is today called the West Indies , sighted an island the Arawak Indians of the region called Bohio. The island’s appearance reminded Columbus of his adopted country, Spain. It was, the explorer wrote in his log, “almost like the lands of Castile [a region in Spain], only better.” He named the island La Isla Española (the Isle of Spain). Over the years the syllables were run together, and the island acquired the name by which we know it today: Hispaniola . Hispaniola is now home to two different countries—Haiti on the west- ern third, and the Dominican Republic on the eastern two-thirds. The island is located between the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, about 575 miles (925 km) southeast of Florida. Cuba, located to the northwest, and Puerto Rico, to the east, are its nearest neighbors. Those three islands and Jamaica

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