Friday 26 Apr, Dom Rep day 3: Hike to El Limon waterfall and discover the wonderful beaches and scene around Las Terrenas.
We wake up to find our neighbours, an Oyster 54, have quietly slipped off at dawn. They are heading to Turks & Caicos, then to Chesapeake like us. They just finished the Oyster world rally.
After breakfast we head off in the car. First stop, the trail head to El Limon waterfalls. After our visit to the dried-up Lulu falls yesterday, our expectations are not high. At the trail-head, before the car has even come to a stop we have men at our windows offering us a horse ride to the falls and telling us where to park. Then, when we tell them we plan to walk to the falls they tell us “solo impossible”. We apparently need a guide. Nice try, thanks. We’ll follow our noses as usual and get there just fine, thank you very much. Actually, it was not far from what actually happened, as we followed the fresh horse shit that was all along the trail path!
At first the trail is quiet, but after a T-junction where we join the main trail there are numerous horses, each with a tourist riding it and a local as horse handler. Actually most of them look like ponies. And they are all small and skinny, whilst some tourists are huge! Poor horses. That’s exactly why we refuse to abuse these animals. Not because we are huge, but because poor horses are clearly abused and underfed by the owners.
After 40 minutes we arrive to the “horse dismounting” area. The last part of the trail has to be on foot. There are literally hundreds of horses all resting in the shade. From there it’s many steps down to the bottom of the main El Limon fall. Thankfully it does have water coming down it. Not much, but enough to make the desired spectacle. It would be amazing to see the 100m drop gushing with water. The pool below is also full of water… and full of tourists! The place is mobbed!!
We see the trail actually continues downwards and there we find a smaller waterfall but an equally big water pool below it, and far less people. So it’s here we have a swim. And by the time we are done we almost have the place to ourselves. It really is a very pretty place without the crowds, and we declare we are glad we made the effort to walk here.
As we trek back up, the main falls area above is still crowded. We even hear some Romanian people! And again we are passed by lots of riders and their poor horses. We wonder just how many hire rides they sell per day. And just where are all these tourists coming from? … we find out later in the afternoon.
We drive through Limon town and head NE to Playa Moron. The road is not good and we pray our tyres will hold up over the potholes. At Playa Moron there is a private residential development and the security guard jumps (uninvited!) into the back of the car and escorts us off the property! He does however show us another way to the beach, about 100m walk down a dusty path. The beach is almost deserted but certainly a nice beach.
As we head back through Limon town we stop at a rough looking tyre shop and buy a new windscreen wiper for just US$4! The old one disintegrated the first time we tried to wash the screen.
We then head up to the beaches around Las Terrenas. First we come across the Grand Bahia all-inclusive resort. We try to get in, two different entrances, but are turned away at both. Hmmm security here is good! Unfortunately. But there was no need for disappointment, because just along the road we come to the most marvelous set of beaches with lots of boutique size hotels, guest houses, restaurants and bars, all very tastefully done. Oana loves it. This is her kind of place – smart, pretty and people!
We sit and have a nice lunch at a beach restaurant and then find a gelateria which is selling the best ice-cream that we’ve ever had in the Caribbean. This place rocks!
As we drive further along the beach the hotels yield to wonderful beach houses landward side of the road and the most amazing beach, lined with palm trees on the seaward side. This beach is called Playa Las Ballenas. We can’t resist. We stop the car and run into the water, which is warm and sparkling clear.
Off the beach where we had lunch, 2 catamarans and 1 monohull were anchored. And we talk about stopping here for a day or so on the way to Puerto Plata. It’s such a great place.
To get to the next beach we have to go back through the town of Las Terrenas. It’s quite a big town and very vibrant. At the beach end it’s holidaymakers and further inland it transits to being very local. Scooters and quads are buzzing around everywhere! Again it reminds us of Vietnam – everybody seems to be on the move doing something. Such a difference from the laid-back (lazy) locals in the Lesser Antilles.
Finally we get through the town and get to Playa Bonita. Somehow the feeling around this bay is very different. A bit like it’s not so successful, a bit run down. The beach is also very narrow with big surf rolling in. Not so good for swimming but clearly a good surfing spot. Lots of surfers in the water.
We conclude our day with a walk along the beach to Punta Bonita, where the sun is setting to the west and several people are bathing in the calm water. We wish we still had our swimwear on.
It takes us over an hour to get back to the marina and it’s dark when we arrive. It’s been a great day out.
Oana was not sure about this island before. But what we saw today has really lifted her. And now that we discovered we can only stay 7 days in Turks & Caicos, we may stay on Dominican Republic longer than planned.
Evening is relaxing and catching up with posting the blog. Like our videos, we are finding it rather time consuming. And quite frustrating when we don’t have good internet to post daily, as it should be. Then earlyish night ready for our day trip to Santo Domingo tomorrow.