Action, waterfalls and life in Las Terrenas

Hola chicos! :)

Time for some action and enough with boring beach life! :P We got a reminder in Las Terrenas about being careful in the ocean. We tell more about it later, but here's one picture ;)

From Cabarete we took a bus, almost a guagua (local minibus) to Las Terrenas. It was a semi big bus and it wasn't that cold as the bus from Santo Domingo to Cabarete. But...the driver was probably deaf as rest of the Dominicans, because they have some thing about listening to music as loud as possible. Yes, we had the pleasure to listening to bachata and salsa really loud the whole way :P 

When we arrived in Las Terrenas, the end stop came a bit quick so we just jumped out from the bus without exactly knowing where we were. As the local style is, there are many guys screaming "moto moto" (offering motorcycle taxi) but after seeing our luggage, they didn't want us as customers... Of course there are also the taxi drivers trying to get you into their taxis. Well, we didn't exactly know how to get to our Airbnb place without taxi so we took one o the guys. After a small search we found our place and the neighbor showed us the necessary stuff in the house. 

Edda stretching before our bus ride. 

(Notice the guard and  the shotgun. All guards had one) 

Our bus

The house was a bit of a disappointment after our nice Cabarete house. This one smelled a bit bad, as if there would have been some mold or other moist problems, we had to wash all the dishes we wanted to use because they were dirty and some of the stuff were stored on the floor. No glass windows, just mosquito net and the fan in the bedroom was making noise and swinging like it would drop from the roof at any minute. This house was a bit hidden from the winds. There was no wind and the mosquitoes loved it... Luckily we have a mosquito net to the bed, because otherwise it had been impossible to sleep with all the mosquitoes. 

The fan that almost dropped ;)

The first day we spent on the "famous" beach Punta Popy. The erosion has taken its share and the beaches in Las Terrenas and Punta Popy area are shrinking and in some places there's basically no beach left. The area where we were had still a bit beach left and we tried to snorkel but the waves tumbled the water so it was full of sand so we couldn't see anything. Because it was Monday, we had the beach almost for our self :) When we walked back, we noticed that there was a music video filming going on at the beach. Some salsa band filmed their music video and it looked fun :)

Punta Popy Beach

Filming a salsa music video

The next day we met Chantal, a Dutch woman whom we met in Cabarete. We had breakfast with her at Good Food and she gave us a lot of tips and we were talking abut kitesurfing quite a lot since she has been practicing it as well. She suggested that we would hire a scooter instead of an ATV and that she could get a small discount for us from one rental shop. We had planned to rent a the ATV or scooter to go to the El Salto Del Limon Waterfalls. After our healthy breakfast we went for a walk to the next beach and just walked around. 

At one place we saw three older men swimming in the sea and shouting something. We thought they just wanted their friends to join them. After a while we understood that they cannot get back and they where shouting for help. There were already few younger men heading to them, but returned alone back. They were totally exhausted when they managed to get back. Someone brought few life buoys' and a rope, but nobody held the rope in the other end ;)

After a short time, there were already five people in the sea and they couldn't get bat back because of the current. One of the guys who tried to help them swimming had gone to his hotel to take a sea kayak, but he was so exhausted he couldn't go with it to help them. Markus asked if it's ok if he goes and the guy just said, por favore, por favore! Then Markus jumped to the kayak, paddled out to the five men and started to drag them back to the shore. It was quite difficult because there were so many of them and one was hanging on the kayak. After a while it wasn't that deep anymore and Markus stood up and tried to keep the kayak still when a motor boat came to help. It picked most of the people but few remained hanging on the kayak and the life buoy. Markus hold on to the rope that was in the motor boat and got back to the beach with the few guys on the kayak. The old men looke to be in quite good shape and not too exhausted even if they almost drowned. Markus took the kayak back to the hotel's beach and then we basically left. One of the men who was trying to help but got stuck in the current said 'thank you' but the rest were hopefully just in a small shock and just forgot to thank. This was a bit different beach day ;)

The next day we rented a scooter for few days and went to drive to few beaches that were a bit further away. We had heard that they should be really nice and beautiful. We arrived to Playa Bonita and walked to the beach. It was a bit of a surprise how it looked, but not in a good way. The erosion had taken almost the entire beach away. There were few places where one could still enjoy the beach without getting caught by the waves. The rest of the beach was eaten by the beach and one could go swim there, but not hanging on the beach without getting wet. We think that these beaches have been nice and beautiful back in the days, but now they are disappearing. We decided that we don't stay there but go a bit earlier to the Limon waterfall. 

The hotels try to stop the erosion with walls.
So far they haven't managed and there is no sand beach left.

We drove there and found the place easily and after our lunch, we were ready to head to the falls. We had read that it's good to take a guide if it's your first time there, because there is few river crossings and it's not totally clear where the path continues. We took a guide and horses. Neither of us had been riding a horse before. It was quite exciting! Markus got a small horse and Edda a mule. All went well and the horses were used to the route. It was basically a full automatic 4wd. No need to steer because the horses knew the route :D
We met one family on our way to the falls and they asked whether it was worth renting the horses? We looked at them when they were really sweaty and looked a bit tired and answered YES ;) It was fun to ride a horse and it was actually a long way to the falls. The last part we had to go by foot when the path turned steep and it would be too steep and hard for the horses. 

River crossing with horses

The waterfall looked amazing! It was so far the best waterfall during our trip! We went swimming and playing in the water and swam to a small "cave" next to the waterfall, and yes, also Edda ;) she was very brave! It has been nice to travel during low season. We had four other people at the waterfalls at the same time as we were there. During high season, the amount is around 40 people and when it's crowded you cannot enjoy the experience as much as when there's just few people. On our way back home, we stopped for a swim on an empty beach. 

We noticed that there was an Etno Mix Festival at Punta Poppy in the weekend. It was free and we visited it on Friday night and there were different bands playing and some other performances and many countries representing them, mostly typical food from each country. We went there also on Saturday during the day and had Italian lunch. Markus had lasagna and Edda some kind of fried mozzarella bread. The lasagna was delicious as well as the "bread", but it was a bit too much of cheese and fat at once for Edda. :p

We walked around Las Terrenas and saw the local life and visited few small fruit stores. There are many nice cafes, bars and restaurants along the road next to the sea. One night we went to the beach to look at a thunderstorm and lightning. It was quite amazing how well the lightnings illuminate the sea and sky. Next night Markus went on his own to take some photos of lightnings.

We had gotten a tip to go to Bayahibe before leaving Dominicans. It should be really beautiful. We checked it from the map and it looked a bit small and with only big resorts around, so we decided to go to the city next to it, La Romana. From there we could visit Bayahibe but we would be in a bigger city. It's almost impossible to find information on the internet about the transportation possibilities. We got help from our next place (a guesthouse in La Romana), and also from few locals. There are buses leaving from Las Terrenas to Santo Domingo every few hours and from there one has to take another bus to La Romana. The bus staff will help you (most probably in Spanish) and we were just moved from one bus to another and then we were in La Romana :D 

 Fruit shopping