You couldn't ask for a finer or more fun group to share HHP's first tour. Every one of these women is a rock star.

The must-stay in Port-au-Prince is the 19th-gingerbread mansion-hotel Oloffson, host to the stars and for one guessed Oloffson's manager, RAM band leader Richard Morse, is a home boy from Woodbridge, Connecticut, an hour from HHP's state-side base.

Staircase at the Oloffson Hotel in Port-au-Prince

Richard Morse didn't just infuse vodou folk music into RAM's music. He became so involved in the vodou community that it initiated him as a houngan, (vodou priest).References to the deities are everywhere at Hotel Oloffson , especially in the sculpture garden on the front lawn.

Hotel Oloffson visitors fan out over an encounter with RAM's band leader, who obliges with a selfie.

Richard's wife Lunise Morse is RAM's lead vocalist.

Jacmel is Haiti's great tourism experiment and a UNESCO 'creative city' designated for crafts and folk art. The whole urban core is ornamented in mosaics.

Our humble Jacmel abode is a 19th-century coffee magnate's mansion restored by an American from Jersey City named Joe Cross who describes himself on LinkedIn as "Not very good at staying in one place or committing myself to anything whatsoever," but clearly made an exception here. Barkeep makes a wicked rum sour!

You'll find people crafting in Jacmel everywhere you go. A woodworker makes furnishings and ornamental pieces in a side yard.