In 2005, I travelled to Haiti to renew my connection to the place. Here are a few of the pictures I took.

In Port-au-Prince, I stayed in a guest house in the northern part of the city, up near the airport. The major street is called Delmas, and it's actually one of the nicer regions, 'cause that's where a lot of people who work in the government live. The guest house I stayed at had a pool, and a roof-top patio, and when I wandered up to the patio, this is what some of the surrounding buildings looked like. This was my first day in Haiti.

The first thing I needed to do was orient myself in the city. I hadn't been to Port-au-Prince before, so I carefully studied the map that comes in my travel book, and determined where the Iron Market was. This was, unfortunately, a Sunday, and I almost no Haitian money, so I determined that I was going to walk. It was pretty far, but ultimately I found it. This shot shows a relatively unbusy time at the market. On other days, especially in peak hours, the market is cram full of people and stalls and vehicles. The market building, itself is only a part of the street market, which consumes a large area around there.

After the market, I wandered to the famous Hotel Oloffson; it's about as far away from my guest house as I travelled. I had lunch there (and they let me pay in American dollars), and it was an amazingly good meal.

The Oloffson is a beautiful hotel.

After a few days in Port-au-Prince, I took a bus to Jacmel, the destination of my first trip to Haiti. Here's a picture of the city as seen from the water. I'm standing out on the end of a pier looking back at the city. It was a beautiful day, and I'd met a guy who started showing me around the city.

I also met these four guys, who wanted me to take lots of pictures of them.

The market in Jacmel is similar to the Iron Market in Port-au-Prince. At one point, I needed to buy shampoo, and a merchant wanted 50 Gourdes. I was pretty sure that that was an inflated price, but, heck, that's less than two dollars American and I couldn't bring myself to haggle.

On my last days in the country, I went back to Port-au-Prince and went up in the mountainous regions around Petionville. There was a mission (whose name escapes me, now) that made great banana bread. The mountains were beautiful, and I enjoyed the sights.

Copyright © 2006 by B.C. Holmes.  Last updated April 19th, 2006.

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