Backpacking In Haiti: Touring Port-Au-Prince, Home Of The World’s Only Successful Slave Rebellion

“Everybody wants to tell what’s already been told” – Prince.

After two cancelled flights, I finally arrived in Port-Au-Prince in Haiti, two days later than expected and with my time here cut short. However, I more than made up for that by trying to cram a lot of hardcore backpacking in a short space of time – the easiest way to do this is of course to hire a driver and get him to tailor your trip to what you want to do and see, so that’s exactly what I did. I arrived into Port-Au-Prince international airport where I got my visa – how to get a visa on arrival in Haiti Port-Au-Prince airport. I stayed in the downtown area – the pumping heart of the city at the main square – Champs De Mars where I slept in a hostel dorm room at Park Hostel. I ended up with two days and one night here and it was tight but I’m glad I maximised my time here.

Haiti is an enigma. It is where the world’s only successful slave rebellion took place. It is also the birthplace of Joe “Larry” Gaetjens, famous for dicking the England 1-0 at the World Cup in Brazil in 1950. Local currency here in Haiti is the Gourde and Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola, with The Dominican Republic, a country I also crammed into my backpack as a debut for 2022.

I still find it hard to comprehend that less than one million people are smuggled into this monster, Port-Au-Prince which is the capital city of Haiti. Haiti, meanwhile itself is a classic enigma for the creative mind. It’s shape is unusual. Like a dinosuar’s bake eating a biscuit!! Or a bird, a crocodile, a claw or something otherworldly.

Without further ado, my Haiti visa in hand, dorm room with Wi-Fi sorted and in the madness of it all, here I was in Haiti, country 212 on my wacaday journey and these are the top things I enjoyed in Port-Au-Prince…

1.Watch A Local Football Match – FC Toro

I actually visited two stadiums in Port-Au-Prince and was able to watch one match. First I visited the national stadium but the place was closed and the area around it was absolutely manic! There were people and street market vendors everywhere to the point where we couldn’t even park up or get anywhere near the stadium! All I managed to get was a short video of the madness and a selfie from the car with the national football stadium in behind! Instead, we headed up to Petionville, a swanky district, by Haitien standards of course. Here I was able to watch FC Toro.

2.Tour Champs De Mars – the main square

Well the main square in any capital city of any country is usually worth a look and by coincidence I was sleeping right on Champs De Mars – the main square here! My hostel was called Park Hostel, which is also connected to Park Hotel – so you can choose if you want the dorm life (myself being dorm loyal) or a private room. Sadly many of the sights in the main square were destroyed during the 2010 earthquake.

I was still able to see the Parliament, the gardens, square and the red and blue kerbstones. The red and blue kerbstones are significant. As I wrote, Haiti is the location of the world’s only ever successful slave rebellion and when they were choosing their flag they deliberately used blue and red, basically ripping the shite white fake peace colour out of the FRANCE flag. Kudos to that story – the current version of the flag actually dates to 1986. This means that in 1974 when Haiti were at the World Cup they actually had a different flag – red and black!

The first purely Haitian flag was adopted on 18 May 1803, on the last day of the Congress of Arcahaie, about 80 kilometres north of Port-au-Prince. Haitian lore holds that the newly appointed revolutionary leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines created the flag by taking a French tricolor and ripping out the shite white fake peace centre, as mentioned, which he discarded. He then asked Catherine Flon, his god-daughter to sew the remaining bands together. The white pale removed, the blue was taken to represent Haiti’s black citizens and the red the gens de couleur. The story is widely known in Haiti: the anniversary of the date is celebrated as the Flag and Universities Day and images of Catherine Flon have appeared on Haitian currency and stamps.

Notable landmark buildings in the downtown were significantly damaged or destroyed in that earthquake, including the Presidential Palace, the National Assembly building, the biggest Port-au-Prince Cathedral, and the main jail.

3.Visit Swanky Petionville

Despite all the troubles in Haiti – from the 2010 earthquake to the recent protests and political and economic unrest, there is still a cool district to visit and it’s way up the hill! My driver Gustana drove me up here and it’s called Petionville. The journey from downtown Port-Au-Prince took us around 45 to 60 minutes at the time. This was mostly due to manic streets, protests, petrol fights and just pure madness. It was in Petionville that I watched a football match, a concert and had my first beer in a bar here – I chose local beer Prestige at Cafe 36. The views on the drive up to Petionville were pretty good.

I visited two hotels here – one was actually to get a viewpoint of the city but due to the timing, and the fact I was groundhopping, when we got here it was dark so the view wasn’t great in photos – for me when I was there I enjoyed the views of the city. From Hotel Caribe, there is a view of the city.

4. A Concert at Cafe 36, La Lorraine

In Petionville, I headed to Cafe 36, which is fairly upmarket and one of the safer places for tourists. I grabbed a Prestige beer at the cool bar here and we managed to catch a jazz concert that was on at the time. Cafe 36 is actually part of a posh hotel known as La Lorraine Boutique Hotel. So I guess for some of you, maybe sleeping in Petionville is an option, but I preferred my hostel in the downtown. If I revisit Port-Au-Prince, it would also be nice to stay overnight in Petionville, where a mini pub crawl could be managed, as there are some cool bars here.

5.Local Beer – Prestige Hat-trick

I always love to try the local beer and actually I had quite a few of these – my driver Gustana popped into a petrol station to buy me one as an introduction to Haiti! Then I later had one in Cafe 36 in Petionville. Then I went out with my dorm mate Paul (from Togo) and we had a few beers. I basically had the prestige hat-trick – in a bar, in a car, in the hostel! In fact, I had four as I also drank a quick one at Port-Au-Prince international airport to use up my final Haitian Gourdes.

We also drove past the Prestige Brewery but on such a short topsy turvy trip, I didn’t consider asking if they do guided tours. I wouldn’t have had time for it, anyway.

6.Eat Fresh Hot Street Food

With my hostel dorm buddy Paul (from Togo) we headed out onto the streets near our hostel to get some decent street food and beers. It was a local street food vendor selling spicy spaghetti and so that’s what we had.

Here are some more of my photos from backpacking in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, which was a very short and intense trip but worth it to complete the Hispaniola jigsaw and saunter onto country 213, which would fall to The Bahamas and I had a direct flight there.

Here are some videos of my time touring Port-Au-Prince, Haiti: