Dominican Republic

Santo Domingo hit different from the moment I stepped into the Zona Colonial. The streets are narrow and sun-bleached, the stone walls are five centuries old, and everything about the place reminds you that this is where the New World began. Walking from the cathedral to the Alcázar, past iron lamp posts and walls draped in bougainvillea, I kept thinking — Kathmandu has old streets too, but nothing quite like this, where the cobblestones go all the way back to Columbus.

The fort along the Malecón gave the best view I found in the city. You sit on that warm rust-coloured stone above the highway, the Caribbean stretching out ahead and the Santo Domingo skyline spreading behind you, and it feels like the city is caught between two worlds — the colonial past crammed into one corner and the modern sprawl pushing outward in every direction. Up on a rooftop somewhere in the middle of it all, you can see both at once.

The food was a whole thing on its own. I ate lunch right on the edge of the ocean, the waves crashing maybe ten metres away, with sancocho and a grilled platter in front of me. Dinner one night was in a candlelit colonial courtyard in the Zona Colonial, the kind of place where the walls are thick and the wine is cold and you forget what time zone you're in. The DR surprised me — I came for a quick trip and left wanting more time.