Merengue and Bachata

Both of the Dominican Republic's musical exports are recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage, and they come from opposite ends of respectability. Merengue is the national music, fast, two-step, driven by the tambora drum and the güira scraper, played at every celebration and taught to every child, with a festival in Santo Domingo each July. Bachata began in the 1960s in rural bars and brothels, a slower guitar-led music of heartbreak that the middle class dismissed for decades before it became one of the most danced styles in the world, taught in dance schools from Tokyo to Madrid. Hearing them where they belong means the colmados, the corner shops that double as bars, where the speakers are enormous and the dancing starts on the pavement.

What you actually see

• A colmado at night - corner shop, huge speakers and dancing on the pavement.
• The merengue festival - the July celebration on Santo Domingo's Malecón.
• The tambora and güira - the drum and scraper that drive merengue.
• A bachata night - the guitar music that went from rural bars to the world.

When to go

Year-round; the merengue festival falls in July on the Malecón, and Carnival in February brings music across the country. Weekend nights are when colmados turn into dance floors, from about ten onwards.

Honest expectations

Hotel shows are a thin version and bear little relation to the real thing; the colmados and neighbourhood venues are where it lives, which means going with someone local or at least reading the room. Volume levels are genuinely extreme. Dance-school bachata abroad has evolved into something quite different from what is danced here, which surprises visitors who arrive confident.

Nearby

Santo Domingo's Malecón and Zona Colonial are the easiest starting points.