Happy new year! I am sure that we are all looking forward to a far less dramatic one than 2020! We were blessed with getting to see one of the most beautiful places on earth this week. Los Haitises is a national park in the Dominican Republic. It is a two hour sail from Samana so an easy excursion. Except the Dominican government does have to make it a bit more challenging. In order to leave the marina in Samana and travel two hours across the bay to arrive in Los Haitises, we needed another despacho from the navy! So, I went to talk with the navy and I told them we wanted to be in the park for three days (our friends were approved for three days by the other navy officer that was in downtown Samana). Our navy officer shook his head and said, “I can approve you for two days.” Sigh. Given that the weather report on the third day was a little iffy anyway, I took what I could get. So, he filled out the despacho for us to go to the national park and then for us to go to Samana bay to anchor for a week when we returned. As much as we loved the marina, getting into town was expensive and not always convenient so we thought we would try out the bay which has easier access to town. So, with my piece of paper in hand, we set sail to Los Haitises. When we pulled in, our friends on Make Way were the only other boat in the park. It was amazing! Hollywood supposedly filmed some of the scenes from Jurassic Park in Los Haitises and it definitely felt like Jurassic Park! There were huge cliffs that rose from the water and caves that were large enough for our dinghy to explore. We waited for the small tour boats to depart for the day and then we went exploring. We took the dinghy down a quiet inlet to find the cave that was famous for petroglyphs. The cave was much larger than we had expected and had several rooms to explore. The petroglyphs were done by the Taino people and consisted of people, fish, birds, insects and shark drawings. Then, of course, we had the non-Taino additions such as “Juan was here, 2018” or “Maria loves Marco, 2015” in certain places. I got to thinking about future generations that will re-discover the caves after we are long gone….I think they will find our generation a bit uninspired compared to the Tainos! After our spelunking expedition was done, we went back to Make Way for dinner with our friends and then back to Galt for one of the quietest anchorages we have had in a while. The moon was full and the only civilization we could see was the lights from a small town on the far shore. A little piece of heaven! We woke up early the next morning to go explore the second Taino cave before the tour boats were awake. We then decided to try to find an Eco Lodge that reportedly had a good lunch. Instead of being called an Eco Lodge, it should have been called Land of the Lost. The river that led to the lodge was hidden a few bays away and after several false starts, we found the correct river. The ride up the river on the dinghy felt exactly like the Jungle Cruise ride at Disney World. I kept expecting some fake elephants and head hunters to show up! Instead, we had several large birds that would suddenly erupt from the bushes and startle us but the real startle was when we rounded a sharp corner and encountered a huge catamaran that was making its’ way down river! Bill managed to squeeze us off to the side in the bushes to allow them to pass but I am pretty sure none of them aboard missed my “Oh shit!” with or without a translator!
When we reached a bend in the river that had a dock, we assumed we had reached our destination. A few locals pointed us in the right direction down the dirt road. As our friend, Matt, put it, “This is quite agricultural”….as we stepped in ankle deep “soil” (or so we chose to believe). We were greeted by chickens, roosters, guinea hens, kittens and a peacock. We walked about a mile up the road and finally found the Eco Lodge. Upon arrival, we were less than impressed by the dirty pool areas but we voted that we were hungry so we would stay for lunch. While we were waiting for our lunch, we watched a most amazing transformation. Several workers were scrubbing the pool areas and emptying buckets of dirty water out of the pool. Then they poured a massive amount of bleach into the empty pool and scrubbed some more….yes, we definitely had a chuckle that the Eco Lodge used more bleach than I have probably used in my lifetime. By the time we finished lunch, not only were the pools spotlessly clean, they turned on all of the waterfalls that poured into each pool level and it was incredible! As we walked around the grounds, we marveled at the craftsmanship and engineering that must have taken years to complete! The rooms were built into the side of the cliffs and I have to admit that I was a bit sad not to be staying the night. After our time in Las Haitises was complete, we sailed back across the bay and anchored in the Samana harbor area. It is a deep harbor so finding a depth that would work for us took us about an hour of floating around. Once we found a spot, a local came out in his boat to wave us off saying, “no good, no good!” Since we weren’t sure why it was “no good”, we moved onto spot number two. It was a beautiful anchorage until the waves whipped up the next day and gave us a full day and night of extremely rocky conditions. After a night of little sleep and knowing the weather was not going to improve for several days, we both voted that we would move back over to the marina so that we would be more comfortable and would be able to do some more small jobs on Galt. Of course, not that simple…..Bill had to go into town and get another despacho so that we could move the boat back to the marina which was all of 3 miles away by boat. Alas, despacho in hand, we made it back to the marina where we happily plopped into the infinity pool to await the new year. At one point, Bill made the comment, “You know, this pool would be perfect if only it was about five degrees warmer”. As we looked around at our sunset over the ocean, we both started laughing at how ironic his comment was as we sat in a pool in December in 82 degree weather! As you can see, it was a busy week that was a great ending to a very trying year. I wish all of you the best in 2021! Feliz Ano Nuevo! Educational fact for the week: Los Haitises National Park is a national park located on the remote northeast coast of the Dominican Republic that was established in 1976. It consists of a limestone karst plateau with conical hills, sinkholes and caverns, and there is a large area of mangrove forest on the coast. Other parts of the park are clad in subtropical humid forest and the area has an annual precipitation of about 2,000 mm (79 in). The park contains a number of different habitats and consequently has a great diversity of mammals and birds, including some rare species endemic to the island. Some of the caverns contain pictograms and petroglyphs. The park has become a popular ecotourism destination but the number of tourists allowed to visit is limited. Los Haitises National Park - Wikipedia ****More pictures on the Pictures tab for this week
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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