TAINO TOURS OF QUISQUEYA

Come along with our team of experts to explore the land that the Taínos called Quisqueya ("Land for Which There Is None Greater"). Since 1492, it has been called Hispaniola, an island shared by the Dominican Republic and the Republic of Haiti.
The Native Taínos of the Greater Antilles, whose political-cultural center was the island of Quisqueya, were the very first Amerindian people to meet, to trade with, to fight with, and to intermarry with Europeans.
Although there are no reservations of Taínos, there are huge concentrations of Taíno descendants in the Dominican countryside. Their presence is clearly visible in the smiling faces of millions of Dominican criollos--most Dominicans are a biological mixture, with ancestors of Amerindian, African, and European descent-and in their everyday language, which, although Spanish-based, includes hundreds of Taíno words such as un chin, barbacoa, tiburón, iguana, bohío, caracol, tabaco, maiz, manatí, maraca, yuca, casabe, canoa, huracán, hamaca, batata, auyama, guanábana…. and place and river names such as Higuey, Maguana, Sabana, Yuma, Ozama…. The Taíno inheritance is also clearly visible in myriad aspects of Dominican culture, especially campesino culture, the traditional culture of the countryside. This includes what Dominicans eat, how they grow and prepare what they eat, home building and boat construction, fishing practices, home-based medicinal and curing practices, home-based religious practices, methods of child raising, their concept of who is "family," their enjoyment and use of song and dance, not to mention their general friendliness and good spirits. Solid evidence of the Taínos' artistic abilities abounds in today's Dominican arti-crafts.

Dominicans who appreciate their Taíno heritage, like the internationally renowned Hermanos Guillén of Yamasá, have dedicated their lives to creating fine replicas of Taíno art and artifacts, and "Neo-Taíno" art, as have hundreds of Dominican wood, bone, and shell sculptors, jewelry makers, carvers of higueros ("gourds"), basket makers, weavers, and musical instrument makers. There are fabulous museum exhibits of Classic Taíno artifacts. Especially noteworthy are those at the Museum of Dominican Man, Archaeological Museum of Altos de Chavón, and the private museum of Manuel García-Arévalo. And the island abounds with caves and other sacred sites where the ancient Taínos sculpted guardian "zemies" and drew incredible pictographs that still look as if they were painted just yesterday.

Our tours offer glimpses of it all! Hispaniola is the most geographically varied island in all the Caribbean. Many parts of it are virtually pristine, untouched since the days when the Taínos ruled supreme. Hispaniola boasts the turquoise waters of the calm Caribbean and the crashing surf of the tropical Atlantic, both with their white sand beaches lined with swaying coconut palms and stately royal palms; vast coastal plains, today densely covered in sugar cane; towering mountains with cascading waterfalls and lush green rain forests populated by a wide variety of exotic birds ranging from the tiniest hummingbirds to wild parrots and parakeets, and the endangered trogan, a relative of the Central American quetzal; mangrove jungles with phosphorescent waters; salt lakes teeming with crocodiles, iguanas, flamingos, roseate spoonbills, and other colorful waterfowl; scorchingly hot deserts with tree-high cacti and exquisite flowering plants that burst like magic upon a mystically barren land where it seems as if nothing so beautiful could survive; rich agricultural valleys like the Cibao and Maguana, where even dead branches of trees stuck into the ground to create fences sprout to life to create "living fences" (cercas vivas); tiny towns and quaint pueblos that, but for the tv antennas, seem more like living remnants of the colonial era, with their individual huts and houses handmade from a wide variety of natural and purchased materials, spots of bright color along the roads that wind among the hills and valleys of the countryside and dot the steep mountains and hillsides; sprawling cities like Santiago with its astonishing mix of modern and Victorian, and ultra-modern Santo Domingo, with its awe-inspiring Zona Colonial, the well preserved site of the first permanent European colony in the New World.

SAS Travel and Tours
Tel (829) 875-4599, Fax Toll Free (888) 845-3110
Zip Code: Apartado Postal Z-077 RD.
Email, agencydr@yahoo.com or inf@studentservicesdr.org