When your flight touches down at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport, the outlook would point to no. After an efficient immigration process made more appealing by a live Haitian music group, you are confronted at the terminal's doors by the real Haiti. Throngs of people line the fenced-off walkway in front of the airport, waiting for family members or offering taxi services to the stray traveler who might not have previously arranged a ride with his or her hotel in advance. There are rental cars available, but to state that driving in Haiti is not for the faint of heart is like saying that street food in Mexico is not for the weak of stomach. Port-au-Prince is a spectacularly unlovely city, and for the first-time visitor it's not quite clear whether Haiti is recovering from an earthquake or a zombie apocalypse. The most striking feature of the city, even for someone well-traveled in developing countries, is the stunning lack of infrastructure. Whereas most cities have roads, Port-au-Prince rubbish-strewn paths of rubble that traverse seemingly endless low-slung one-story concrete neighborhoods. Every trip on a Haitian road is a full-on assault on the senses. Your four-wheel drive vehicle will compete for space in the soul-crushing traffic with UN vehicles, giant water trucks, other regular intrepid drivers, motorbikes with a family of four piled on the back, pedestrians, and legions of the ubiquitous taptaps- pick-up trucks with two rows of benches that seat up to 30 passengers and are elaborately decorated in an explosion of color. Common taptap motifs feature various exhortations to God or messages to keep calm and relax- both of which seem entirely necessary in Haitian traffic. Some sections of major roadways are paved and have sidewalks, but after a luxurious half-kilometer the road will revert to debris and potholes. As long as you're not the white-knuckled driver, you can spend hours observing street life- checking out the street vendors, pondering the proliferation of dry cleaners, lotto stands and beauty parlors lining the street, and picking out the best-decorated taptap. Haitian pedestrians are often well-dressed and composed considering the noise, heat and dust through which they must navigate, and no one seemed particularly interested in the four white Americans making their way up the mountain to the residential neighborhoods. On the infrastructure front, however, Haiti is decidedly not ready for its tourism debut.
Outrageous traffic aside, Port-au-Prince boasts some pockets of tranquility. Petionville, the mountain town somewhat removed from the bustle of downtown, has long been the redoubt of the Haitian elite. Relatively spared the worst of the earthquake's destruction, it still has suffered in recent years as many people fled the destruction at sea level and resettled in the town's winding streets. Although a far cry from quaint, Petionville has a few amenities for the adventurous traveler amidst the noise and taptaps. The Kinam Hotel, located directly on the Place St. Pierre, serves as a great base. Its bar overlooking the leafy square is the perfect place to order a delicious rum punch made with locally-produced Barbancourt rum, while a tiny cafe serves Haitian coffee, two boutiques offer reasonably-priced handicrafts and art, and an incongruous Adidas store is useful in case you forgot shoes for running (on your hotel's treadmill, of course). The hotel itself is divided between its historic wing featuring gingerbread architecture and its modern addition, but guests on either side can make use of the shady garden pool and open-air restaurant. Directly outside the hotel's doors lies an outdoor art market for souvenirs and knick-knacks. Although many of the items appear suspiciously mass-produced, if you linger long enough you can find some unique gems- such as a Botero-esque Haitian general in vibrant neon tones. After all, who wouldn't welcome a rotund fuscia dictator into one's home?
Another oasis is Quartier Latin, a restaurant set in a charming colonial mansion off of a green square in Petionville with a friendly European owner. The food is excellent, as is the wine list and the live Haitian jazz, which plays at just the right volume. You can dine in the open-air garden or in the mansion itself, which is decorated in an eclectic style and whose walls feature endearing Sharpie-marked messages from satisfied diners. If you wander upstairs, you can even catch a trunk show from a Miami-based bespoke tailor who regularly returns to his native Haiti to lend his expertise and encouragement to the local fashion scene. Port-au-Prince proper has a few other tourist attractions, such as the recently-restored Marché de Fer market for souvenirs and voodoo-related items, or the Musée du Panthéon National Haïtien (MUPANAH), with relics spanning Haiti's surreal, tragic history. While the downtown area is located in the "red zone" and thus off-limits to Embassy personnel, recent reviews on TripAdvisor show that tourists are still regularly visiting these sights without undue hardship (check the State Department's website at travel.state.gov for the latest updates concerning security in Haiti). On the tourist amenities side, Haiti is ready for a certain kind of intrepid tourist- one who is open-minded, has all the time in the world, and is willing to navigate some chaos en route to sites of interest.
60 - SEVENSEAS