Before heading back to Samana, we decided to spend our last day at Haitises Parque visiting Paraiso Cano Hondo. It was easy to get to after a short dinghy ride up a mangrove river, and a short walk up a dirt road, which ran between rice fields. It is advertised as an ecotourism resort. Since I have never visited an ecotourism resort, I’m not sure how it would rank, but my time there felt more like a favorite weekend hangout for locals.
It was a very interesting place…
An amazing number of stones were used in the construction of the buildings, terraces, and pools.
We definitely stuck out here, as visitors. These girls were excited to help me practice my Spanish.They were so happy to hang out with us, and I am sorry to say that I had their names written down, but now I can’t find them😧
The resort tapped into the Jivales River, and diverts its flow through 28 pools and waterfalls.
The construction was quite amazing!
Definitely enough room to spread out and find your own pool.
This was a great medium sized town that offered a great glimpse into Dominican culture.
Fruits and vegetables were plentiful, but they came with a warning. Any produce purchased from a market or truck may carry parasite eggs. The advice was to soak items in a mixture of 1 part vinegar and 2 parts water for 5 - 15 minutes, and rinse thoroughly with fresh water before consuming. The other bit of advice, for cruisers, is to take a non parasitic (dewormer😳) drug once a month. This is the kind of information that weighs heavily on my mind, and while I don’t think we picked up any parasites (I was secretly hoping for a little weight loss), we did purchase the drug before we left DR…just in case🤞 Of course, every little stomach issues makes me think I have a tapeworm🤣
The spice and herb section of the market was impressive!
Watching the locals fish is very entertaining! I know all fishermen process a certain level of patience, but these people are literally ‘next level’. For one thing, no one uses a fishing rod. They simply wrap line around anything round…the boy used a piece of plastic pipe! They unwrap some line, hand toss the hook, and stand perfectly still for hours. Unfortunately, we never saw them catch anything.
Another scene that caught our attention, while at anchor, was this repair team. I saw a man carrying a ladder across the bridge…I did not think he was going to do this with it😳
They were successful in restoring lights to the four arches on the left👏
During our 18 day wait we completed numerous boat projects, and found some time for a little snorkeling and island exploration…
On one snorkeling excursion I spotted two squid. We have seen squid before, and their behavior is always the same. When they first notice us, they shoot away…super fast, but they usually don’t go far. If I swim in the direction of their departure I will usually spot them again about 30-50 ft away. We will repeat this sequence two or three times until they get used to seeing me, and apparently no longer feel threatened. Eventually, they just let me hang out with them, and it makes me sooo happy♥️
Good bye my friend.
On April 11, we left Dominican Republic for Puerto Rico. I will give you the details of our crossing in the next blog post.
If you are not currently receiving these posts by email, and would like future posts to come directly to your inbox, please send me a message at MVRightHand@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment