Punta Cana.- For more than fifteen years The tourist area of Macao-Punta Cana has been receiving top Europa’s big hotel chains and put this coastal band of the Dominican province La Altagracia in the tourist map of the world.
The beauty of its beaches constituted the great attraction that with the time has beed diversified with the construction of golf courses and the access to nature reserves and other zones of ecological interest.
The zone limited as tourist pole includes the beaches of Macao, Cortecito, Bavaro, Arena Gorda, Cabeza de Toro, Punta Cana and Juanillo, with dozens of uninterrupted kilometers of beaches with thin white sand shaded by thick coconuts palms. These beaches have in common, besides its exquisite beauty, multiple attractions in its environments.
One of these attractions is the National Park of the East, ecological reservation that possesses the major concentration of caves, art of The Antilles.
The island´s population is a fishermen’s small community. It has leafy forests, sandy beaches and marshes – refuges of a great diversity of insects, reptiles and birds, many of them are endemic of the island. On its marine fauna tortoises and sea-cows are fed.
Other attractions of the beach chain are: La laguna de Bávaro, the zones of skin-diving and international fishing at Cabeza del Toro, the caverns and underground rivers, the indians cemeteries, the mountains and the resorts of rivers.
The International Airport of Punta Cana connects the zone with America and Europe.
A report of the United Nations Organization for the Education, the Science and the Culture (UNESCO) certified in 1971 that the coast is one of the best zones of beaches of the world.
The hotels that have been built in Punta Cana are one of its biggest attractions, because there are available for multiple budgets and predilections. The Cathedral of Nuestra Señora de la Altagracia-Basilica of Higüey- is located in the principal city of the province La Altagracia, Higüey.
This church was, designed by A. Nunoyer of Segonzacy and Pierre Nupré, and inaugurated on January 21, 1971.
This Basilica was constructed to replace the Old Sanctuary, which was turning out to be small to receive the devout ones.
The christianity came for the first time to America with the Admiral Christopher Colombus in 1492 and from this island initiate the evangelization towards all the American continent.
The temple was constructed to venerate the Virgin Mary. The Marian worship, under the dedication of the Altagracia, constitutes the most notable manifestation of the popular religiousness for the Dominicans. This is the reason why religion is mixed and associated with our culture, folklore and historical characteristics.