Amber is a fascinating substance. The ancient Greeks called it elektron (this word wasn’t applied to electricity till the late 19th century), and this fossilized tree sap has been used for adornment for at least a dozen millennia, give or take. I love its warm, soft translucence, in hues from the yellowish to the brownish (the most common, which gave rise to the color amber) to even, believe it or not, bluish. Amber’s air of mystery and just plain coolness is further heightened by the fact that in many cases bubbles, swirls and even fossils are a regular feature.

What all of this has to do with the Dominican Republic is simple: apart from Baltic European countries like Latvia and Lithuania, the DR has the world’s only major deposits of amber, with many of the mines located up in the mountains between Puerto Plata and Santiago. Dominican amber tends to have more of those cool little details embedded in it like ferns, feathers, insects, and such (sometimes you’ll even see pieces with larger critters like frogs and lizards).

Read more in my post Forever Amber in the Dominican Republic.

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