Photo story: life on the Dominican Republic's dazzling Amber Coast

Locals focus on a game of dominoes in Puerto Plata’s colonial-era centre. Resting between verdant Mount Isabel de Torres and the Atlantic Ocean, this genteel trading port is the oldest city on the country’s north coast and one of the most popular stops on a trip to the region.

Despite its long history of trade, industry and tourism, time hasn’t spoilt Puerto Plata’s old-time authenticity. Hang around the town’s calm waterfront in the late afternoon and you’ll spot fishermen returning to shore from a day at sea.

At the colourful market stalls in Puerto Plata, animated by loud vendors, you can find everything from fruit and vegetables to meat and other local delicacies.

Lapped by bright blue waters and whipped by Atlantic winds, the resort town of Cabarete has developed a Caribbean-hippy identity over the years, blessed as it is with paradisiacal beaches fringed by forest. Here, visitors can find watersports galore. One of the area’s beaches, Playa Encuentro, has made a name for itself as a hub for surfing, windsurfing and kitesurfing.

Playa Encuentro is home to some of the best watersports centres in the area, such as Ocean Academy DR, which offers surfing, kitesurfing and standup paddleboard classes and safaris. Founded and run by international kitesurfing champion Luciano Gonzalez, the school donates part of its profits to finance watersports training for local underprivileged children.

A girl dances in a corridor of the Mariposa DR Foundation. In the autumn of 2012, the non-profit organisation restored a rundown property in Cabarete into a facility where underserved girls can engage in sports, access libraries and computers and receive academic tutoring, job training and healthcare advice.

Further along the coast is the laid-back fishing village of Río San Juan, one of the country’s foremost eco-destinations due to its rich biodiversity and relatively limited tourism development. It’s a place of mangroves, almond trees and secluded coves, like Playa Caletón, pictured above.

Crescent-shaped Playa Caletón, flanked with mangrove trees and rocks bearing sculpted faces of Taínos chiefs, carves out a natural seawater pool from the surrounding coastline. Despite its secluded feel, the beach is easy to get to from Río San Juan, and a pitstop here often features on boating itineraries.

Nearby, Laguna Gri-Gri is a maze of clear, turquoise canals snaking through a thick mangrove forest. One of the country’s main bird sanctuaries, it’s ideal for a wildlife-spotting excursion: visitors can join daily, hour-long boat tours of the tangled water channels, stopping at Cueva de las Golondrinas for a quick dip before finishing the outing at Playa Caletón.

Continue along the coast, and you’ll find the mile-long Playa Grande. As the name suggests, it’s one of longest sandy beaches on this stretch of coast, and the big swells that break near the shore make it a surfing hotspot. In this picture, the sunrise casts a golden hue over the tropical landscape.

In Río San Juan — in fact, in the whole of the Amber Coast — keep an eye out for shaded corners with beautiful, big-leaved vegetation.

The pristine landscape of Playa La Entrada, which marks the beginning of the coastal corridor between the town of Cabrera and the larger hub of Nagua, is only interrupted by a couple of informal shacks.

Locals by Playa La Entrada’s beach shacks.

West of Cabarete, on the border of the Puerto Plata and Monte Cristi provinces, lies Punta Rucia. Sheltered by a sandbank and overlooked by mountains, this beach is relatively uncrowded, save for the cluster of palm-shaded kiosks serving seafood and cold drinks.

Here, visitors can expect a meal of fresh lobsters and crab, straight from the sea.

A lady cleans up in one of the rustic beach restaurants at Playa La Ensenada, near Rio San Juan.

Punta Rucia is also the main docking point for Cayo Arena, a tiny slick of sand encircled by what might be one of the most beautiful stretches of coral reef in the Caribbean. Frequented by schools of surgeonfish, sergeant majors, damselfish and more, it's a fantastic place for snorkelling and scuba diving.

Come sundown, the community of Punta Rucia gathers on the sand to play sports or while away the evening, as fishermen return to shore. The quieter scenes of the north stand in contrast to the bustle of the south, where much of the country’s tourism is centred.

The calm, shallow waters of Punta Rucia, protected by a coral reef, are home to a rich variety of marine life.

Since time immemorial, people on Hispaniola (the island shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti) have grown tobacco. Indeed, the Dominican Republic produces some of the highest-grade tobacco in the world and, along with rum and merengue, cigars have become a symbol of the country.

At his restaurant and cigar factory in Cabrera, Babunuco Cigars y Restaurant, Juan Alberto Martínez shreds and trims tobacco with his wife, rolling the dried leaves into bespoke cigars presented in wooden humidors.

Tobacco production has been deeply intertwined with Dominican culture since ancient times. It was considered a sacred plant by the indigenous Taíno people, and many tribes used it in spiritual or warrior rituals.

The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Zona Colonial, in Santo Domingo, is the oldest continually inhabited European settlement in the Americas, home to a trove of historic treasures. Between this central district’s leafy parks, an array of 16th-century buildings — such as the Church and Convent of Regina Angelorum, pictured above — overlook handsome plazas.

The twilight hour paints the sea lilac by the famous Malecón of Santo Domingo, on the edge of the Zona Colonial. Lined with a row of bars and restaurants, Avenida George Washington comes to life after sunset, when residents stroll its length to enjoy the evening breeze.

Domino games are a common sight around La Capital — as Santo Domingo is also known — often accompanied by the sound of tiles being slammed on the table. The board game is played everywhere on the island — on front porches, at bus stops, or, in this case, between the vegetable stalls of Mercado Modelo, the capital’s largest bazaar.

The Zona Colonial was intended to serve as a model for the New World, and many of its buildings, including the Cathedral of Santo Domingo (in the background of this picture), are the oldest of their kind in the Americas. The Cathedral faces Parque Colon, the main square of the district, where visitors and locals enjoy sitting in quaint cafes, listening to merengue players or people-watching on a bench.

The Palacio Consistorial, Santo Domingo’s original town hall, was erected in the early 16th century (but its neoclassical clock tower, which today defines the skyline of the Zona Colonial, was added almost four centuries later).

Locals play basketball in Plaza de San Antón, among stairs that lead up to the 16th-century church of Ermita de San Anton.

The work of artist, illustrator and art director Evaristo Angurria centres on Dominican culture and identity. His murals — which can be spotted in Santo Domingo, as in this picture, as well as the rest of the country — often focus on the everyday beauty rituals of Dominican women, such as their hair routines.