Travel Guide Gonaïves

Gonaïves is a hot and dusty city that is a kind of crossroads from which you can rally Cape, Port-de-Paix, and Hinche via Saint-Michel-de-l 'Attalaye. Despite the proximity of salt marshes and the presence of a small harbor, there is no impression of visiting a coastal town. In 2004 and 2008, cyclone Jeanne, then Hurricane Hanna and its diluted rains, caused the rise in water levels and mortal mud flows. Despite these humanitarian disasters, the city is reappearing every time. People rebuild or repair their devastated homes, when they have not lost everything, and life continues.HistoryFor all Haitians, Gonaïves is the city of independence, since it is on the Place of Arms, in the shadow of the palm tree of freedom, that the country's independence was proclaimed, on January 1, 1804. The official act was written and signed at Vernet and Boisrond-Tonnerre, and the following tirade was declared to be posterity: " To make the act of birth of our freedom, it takes the skin of a white for parchment, his skull for fastening, and for a bayonet. " Today, at the corner of Freedom and Toussaint-Lopenness Streets, is the Memorial of Independence.