Travel Guide Pepillo Salcedo

Further west, we discover Pepillo Salcedo, a town on the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Its original and tragic history speaks volumes about farming in the country: a large American fruit company had set its sights on the region and created Pepillo Salcedo. Until the 1960s, the company farmed some 5,000 ha of banana plantations. The port of Puerto Manzanilla was built to export banana production to Miami. The village was soon built to house the farm's staff. The village consisted of elegant residences, club-houses with swimming pools, sports fields, schools and boutiques.With the business no longer profitable, the fruit company abandoned Pepillo Salcedo to its fate overnight.Today, the rusting railroads no longer carry any banana bunches to the sea-worn docks, and boats haven't docked there for decades. The houses decay in the sun and the pretty lawns have given way to wild vegetation. Only the swimming pool still welcomes the village kids. Pepillo Salcedo has become a huge, dilapidated museum, one of those abandoned villages from a Gabriel García Márquez novel. Freeze-frame, torpor and nostalgia for better days, this is its face today. There are vague plans to breathe new life into this port wedged between Haiti and the sea, but these are just plans..