/Haiti

Ah, Haiti, where vaudou drums echo from the jungle during moonlit nights. Here is one of the most exotic destinations on earth. In Haiti, just about everybody is involved in the creative arts. The best of its painters sell their works for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Of late, tourists have by-passed Haiti because of its political instability. Today, the country seems to be on the rebound. Haiti was once the New World's richest place and the crown jewel of the French overseas empire. Today, poverty is everywhere in evidence.

Still, there is much to see and do. In the north is the mountain-top Citadelle la Ferriere, built by Henry Christopher, born a slave in the English Caribbean. He rose from stable boy to His Haitian Majesty, King Henri Christophe.

Aided by the UN, efforts are under way to restore the king's 18th century Sans Souci, named for and copied after Frederick the Great's palace in Germany.

British writer Christopher Nicole, in his book Black Majesty, Book Two, Wild Harvest, describes San Souci as: "Christophe's palace outside his capital city of Millot was unashamedly a copy of its European namesake, a fabulous accumulation of halls and marble pillars, of ballrooms and reception rooms, built around a staircase which even when surrounded by a hundred and fifty years of decay takes away the breath."

Equally intriguing is the current rich lifestyle of Petionville overlooking the capital at Port-au-Prince. Here is the French colonial gingerbread Olofsson, a favourite resort-hotel setting in novels about colourful Haiti. If you are a connoisseur of the finest in rum, be sure to sample Haiti's fabulous 5-star Barbancourt.

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