Punta Cana & the East

The east was the Taíno chiefdom of Higüey, ruled at the time of the conquest by the cacique Cotubanamá. After a revolt, Governor Nicolás de Ovando sent troops in 1503 and 1504; Cotubanamá, who had taken refuge on Saona Island, was captured and executed in Santo Domingo, and the east was brought under Spanish control. Juan Ponce de León, a captain in the campaign, governed the conquered province and built a stone house near San Rafael del Yuma that still stands, before sailing to conquer Puerto Rico. Salvaleón de Higüey grew around the shrine of the Virgen de la Altagracia, whose painting has been venerated there since the 16th century.

For three centuries the east was open cattle country with few people. That changed in the late 19th century, when Cuban planters fleeing the Ten Years' War and foreign investors built sugar mills around San Pedro de Macorís and La Romana. The boom drew labourers from the English-speaking Caribbean islands, known as cocolos, and later from Haiti, and made San Pedro one of the most productive towns in the country. During the US occupation of 1916–1924, armed rural fighters known as gavilleros resisted the marines in the east.

Modern tourism began in 1969, when investors bought land at Punta Cana and later built a private international airport, which opened in 1984. Bávaro and Punta Cana then grew into the country's largest resort zone, and La Romana's sugar company added the Casa de Campo resort and Altos de Chavón.

The cocolo community of San Pedro de Macorís gave the region its most distinctive tradition: the Guloyas, or Cocolo Dance Drama, a street theatre of costumed dancers, drums and fifes performed at Christmas, the patron saint's feast and carnival, recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage. Cocolo descendants also founded Anglican and Moravian churches in the sugar towns.

Baseball arrived with the Cuban sugar men and has become the east's pride. San Pedro de Macorís has produced so many Major League players, including Sammy Sosa, that it is nicknamed the cradle of shortstops, and its Estrellas Orientales and La Romana's Toros del Este play in the winter league.

Religious devotion centres on Higüey, where pilgrims fill the basilica on 21 January for the feast of the Altagracia, and on El Seibo's patron saint's festival, which begins on 3 May and is the only one in the country with bullfights. The countryside of El Seibo and Hato Mayor keeps its ranching traditions.

Higüey, capital of La Altagracia, is the largest town, with over 400,000 people in its municipality, followed by San Pedro de Macorís, with around 217,000, and La Romana. The population of La Altagracia has grown quickly as workers from across the country, and from Haiti, move to the resort zone, and Bávaro and Verón have become sprawling towns of their own.

Tourism dominates the economy, employing tens of thousands in hotels, transport, construction and excursions. Sugar remains important around La Romana, home of the Central Romana mill, and around San Pedro, where a few mills still work; the bateyes, the workers' villages of the cane fields, are among the poorest communities in the country, with many residents of Haitian descent. Cattle and citrus farming run inland in El Seibo and Hato Mayor, and there are free-trade-zone factories in San Pedro and La Romana.

Life in the resort zone runs on shifts, with staff commuting by guagua and motoconcho; housing, water, rubbish and the pace of coastal construction are constant issues. In the older towns, evenings still centre on the park, the church and the ballpark.

Resort buffets serve international food, but local tables stick to la bandera, sancocho and fried fish. Along the coast, fishermen at Bayahibe land snapper, lobster and conch, served fried or in a garlic or tomato sauce with tostones, and coconut water is sold at every beach.

San Pedro de Macorís keeps cocolo traditions in its kitchens, including johnny cakes, fried breads, and guavaberry, a liqueur made from a small wild berry and drunk at Christmas. Sugar cane is chewed fresh or pressed into guarapo, a sweet juice, around the mills.

Inland, the cattle ranches of El Seibo and Hato Mayor supply beef and fresh white cheese, and Hato Mayor's orange groves supply juice stands across the region. Mamajuana is sold in bottles to visitors all over Punta Cana, and Presidente beer and rum are the local drinks.

At the eastern tip, Punta Cana and Bávaro form one long stretch of white sand and coconut palms, with reefs just offshore, and the Indigenous Eyes ecological reserve of freshwater lagoons. Further north, the beaches of Macao and Uvero Alto are wilder, and the coast around Miches in El Seibo is being opened to new resorts.

The south coast has Bayahibe, a diving and snorkelling village, and Cotubanamá National Park, formerly Parque Nacional del Este, with dry forest, caves with Taíno drawings and sea-turtle beaches. Boats cross from Bayahibe to Saona Island's beaches and the shallow sandbars on the way, and to the smaller Catalina Island off La Romana.

La Romana's Altos de Chavón, a replica 16th-century Mediterranean village built from 1976 on a cliff above the Chavón River, has a church, a design school, an archaeological museum and an amphitheatre for more than 5,000 people. Higüey's modern basilica, San Rafael del Yuma's Ponce de León house, San Pedro de Macorís's Victorian-era church and seafront, and the boat trips from Sabana de la Mar to Los Haitises round out the region.