A Tiny Bit of Haiti – Kinda
The destination of the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise was Haiti this year, a place called Labadee on the north cost of the Hispaniola island. Its western third is Haiti, the eastern two thirds are the Dominican Republic. Royal Caribbean has leased the land around the cruise port for at first 20 years when they developed it in the 1980ties, then they renewed the lease for 99 years and the lease runs now beyond 2050.
I booked a “walking tour” on shore and while it wasn’t what I expected, it did turn out to be quite interesting. I was expecting to be led by a guide to the village or town of Labadee, but I should have known that they don’t let us off the premises of the leased land. On the leased bit there is no passport control, you only indicate to the ship’s computer by registering that you left the vessel with your chip cards.
So the “walking” tour was rather a standing tour with a few metal heads listening to our tour guide and walking only a hundred meters from the ship to the so called Columbus Cove. Our guide was a Haitian and he has never left Haiti (mostly because of having no money to travel). Haiti is the poorest country in the region. I’m not sure to what degree our guide’s words were true, but he said a nurse earns the equivalent of 200 USD a month, a doctor 500 USD and the people who work at the Labadee cruise port earn 700 to 800 USD. The jobs with Royal Caribbean are thus very sought after and the company does a screening every half year with interviews, testing your English skills and whatever else. Wow.
He also spoke of history, that Columbus landed tin Hispaniola thinking he had come to India, how the British and French came, the slaves, that Haiti was the first country to abolish slavery, that they don’t like their Dominican neighbors too much, etc. He thanked us for coming, since not so many tourists come to Haiti, he said. So unfortunately we didn’t see anything of the real village, but at least we heard some interesting stories from our guide.
On the leased patch everything is pretty and well maintained, there are three parlors with again free food. I was at least expecting to have to pay on land, but no, also there the food was free, but of course not the booze 
