Travel Guide San Fernando De Montecristi - Montecristi

As you approach Montecristi, the air becomes increasingly dry, and the lush vegetation gradually gives way to a desert landscape, where cacti and thorny plants, including the famous cambrón (a shrub native to Africa from which charcoal is made), replace the luxuriance of tropical plants. Montecristi, the provincial capital, whose real name is San Fernando de Montecristi, is renowned for its maximum sunshine, over 300 days a year, and for the extreme dryness of the region, which averages just 10 days of rain a year. The jewel of the northwest, the border province of Montecristi boasts wild and striking landscapes, ideal for off-the-beaten-track adventures. Between rice paddies and banana plantations, goats and giant cacti stand guard along the roads that lead to salt ponds and limestone cliffs bordering a wave-rich Atlantic Ocean.On his second voyage, while sailing along the coast of present-day Montecristi, Christopher Columbus considered the possibility of building the first city of the New World here, before deciding in favor of a more easterly location. The town of Montecristi was only founded in 1533 by Juan de Bolanos, accompanied by some sixty families from the Canary Islands. It was essential to take advantage of its formidable natural harbour. The town was destroyed in 1606, only to be re-inhabited at the end of the 17th century.Montecristi's most prosperous period came in the last decades of the 19th and early 20th centuries, when the Grenada Fruit Company was established and its port was used to export agricultural products, plantains and precious woods to Europe. Its Victorian-style buildings date from this period.An unspeakable atmosphere of obsolescence and nostalgia hangs over the town, where life unfolds in slow motion under the sweltering sun. The town attracts few visitors, as it lies off the beaten tourist track. The Montecristi cove, however, is reputed to be an excellent windsurfing spot, perhaps even better than Cabarete's, with a stronger wind blowing onto the beach and a wave-free sea. But infrastructure is scarce, and so are windsurfers.