Puerto Plata: the fort on the amber coast

Columbus's first port city founded on the Dominican north coast, Puerto Plata remains the heart of the so-called Amber Coast, rich in fossil deposits.

For Pico Isabel de Torres there's a cable car; the rest is visited on foot or by taxi.

The San Felipe Fortress, built in the late sixteenth century to defend the port from pirates, remains the oldest Spanish fortification still standing in the Americas.

Just steps away, the Amber Museum displays fossil resins millions of years old, some with insects perfectly preserved inside.

Taking the cable car up Pico Isabel de Torres, you reach a statue of Christ the Redeemer, a replica of the one in Rio de Janeiro, with views over the entire bay.

Toward evening, the Malecón, the city's waterfront, fills with families and street vendors as the sun sets over the Atlantic.

Dominican amber is among the richest in the world for fossil inclusions: some specimens displayed in the museum date back tens of millions of years, predating even the earliest hominids.

The Christ statue atop Pico Isabel de Torres was erected in the 1950s as a tribute to its Brazilian counterpart, becoming over time a symbol nearly as important as the Spanish fort below.