Haiti 2013

My Trip to Haiti, May 2013

Here are a few of the photos from my time in Haiti for the 19th annual Livres en Folie (book festival) in Port-au-Prince.

 

I visited three bookshops in Pétion-Ville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince.

 

While in Haiti, I stayed at the Best Western Premier in Pétion-Ville. The hotel is in a great location.  There's a bank next door and a grocery store, Giant, just a block from the hotel.  The hotel's van will drop you at any location less than five miles from the hotel.  They will also pick you up from the airport (for a fee).  The hotel hosted two Happy Hour parties (with a DJ) during my short five night stay.

I enjoyed having meals on the second floor of my hotel. Here I am with my friend Frantz Duval, Editor-in-Chief (left) and Max Chauvet, Director, of Le Nouvelliste (the French-language daily newspaper printed in Port-au-Prince and distributed throughout the country). 

This is the view from my hotel room.



Over 15,000 people attended the Book Festival.  The festival ran from 10 am until 5pm.


I ran into folks from the Red Cross, UN, and these folks from Healing Haiti.  And yes, I'm in the hotel's van, while these folks left the airport in this. Tuk-Tuks in Haiti are pickup trucks generally very colorfully painted with the bed outfitted for passengers.




Call me crazy ... but I walked to the site of the National Palace in Port-au-Prince.  I knew that the palace was no longer there, as it was destroyed by the earthquake, but I wanted to find the statue "Le Negre Marron" (the first photo) and while I had my camera out, I walked around and took more photos.  GGT out!