So, it was time to switch from one country to another. We woke up quite early (around 4am) and took an Uber to the airport in San Jose, Costa Rica. We flew with Condor, a German air carrier and most of the passengers were flying to Frankfurt. Some of the crew members seemed even surprised that we were going to stay in Dominican Republic and not continue to Germany. :p Anyhow, the flight went well and we landed in Santo Domingo. Markus bought a prepaid sim-card at Claro to have access to internet more often. The procedure of buying the card was not very smooth. It took maybe 30 minutes to get a prepaid sim-card and we couldn't test whether if it works or not at the store because of the "big walls". We had to go outside the building to test it. Well, it's working fine now, which is good.
Since we were not going to stay in Santo Domingo but going directly to Cabarete in the North, we had to find our way to a bus station. Markus negotiated a taxi price from 40$ to 20$ from the airport to Caribe Tours. This is from where many long distance buses leave. We were lucky and the faster bus left only 25 minutes after we arrived to the station. The bus ride took a bit over 4 hours and cost around 380 pesos/person, so less than 8€/person. The chairs in the bus were comfortable, but we noticed a cultural difference in the behavior of the fellow passengers. Everyone was listening to music or watching telenovelas or whatever - with no headphones on!? Seriously, is it just us or is that rude to other passengers?
During such long ride, we are not interested in hearing all sounds from computers and mobiles. Markus' friend Miika had warned us that it is freezing cold in the buses in DR. We got to experience this too. We had prepared ourselves with long, comfy sweatpants and long-sleeved hoodies, but we would've been glad with a winter jacket and a scarf! Some local people had winter jackets on inside the bus! We believe it was around 15 degrees Celsius at the coldest point. And when it's 27 - 30 degrees outside, the difference is not pleasant anymore. We don't know why the buses put the air conditioning to so cold.
We had found an apartment through Airbnb near Cabarete for 10 days. The owner had bought a few apartments and is currently renovating them for rental apartments. We got actually a nicer apartment than what we had booked, because it was the only one ready at the moment ;) We booked the apartment last minute, so we got it for a nice price, 16€/night. Not bad! We had decided that we would not move that much in DR, because it gets rather tiring changing places all the time and packing and unpacking every 3rd day or similar. This Airbnb experience was superb! Our hosts, Ralph and Tina took good care of us and even helped us with the transportation on arrival and departure. This location is not in Cabarete centrum, but one can rent a scooter, a car, or take a 'guagua', which is a minibus collecting people from different locations and dropping them off. More or less like a group taxi (very cheap - only 25 pesos, i.e. about 0,50 € per ride!). So if it's not very important to be in the center of the small village, we would highly recommend this place. It is also close to surf beaches, if that's what you're looking for.
We came to Cabarate mainly for one reason - kitesurfing for Markus. :) He had the chance to get on the water twice during our stay, which was not what he hoped for. The main reason for weird wind situations was hurricane Matthew, from which we will tell you more in our next post. Anyhow, our plans went a bit under the water. But we have had time to do some other things instead.
We visited Cabarete caves which are located just a few km south from the center of the main street. The caves were cool and something new for us both. There were three caves we got to visit with a guide. The area is protected so it is prohibited to wander around without a guide. Our guide was very good - had good English and explained a lot about the surroundings, history and plants while we walked from one cave to another. We visited first one cave with stalagmites and stalactites. The cave was not very big, but interesting. The second cave was more like a deep hole in the stone and we could jump in the refreshing, clear water inside of it. That was really nice! The water felt cold first, but at the same time lovely. :D The third cave was under earth and we had to walk down a very narrow and steep ladder and then a narrow path to a small "lake" inside the cave. It was pitch black of course, but we had our flashlights so we could see where we were going. Here we could also go for a swim, which was great. It felt rather surreal to swim inside of a cave, around 25 meters below surface level. The guide told that there are tunnels underneath that are several kilometers long and experienced divers go and explore these tunnels.
We took a salsa lesson from Alma Libre Dance School. It was cuban salsa, which we are not that familiar with. But it was fun for sure. :) We even practiced our learnings on a Thursday at Ojo club when they had their Latin night. There were not that many people there, so we didn't stay very long, but long enough to get a good sweat on :p
We went to see the blue lagoon, El Dudu as well. It was 350 pesos entrance and we were happy it wasn't more. We went first to a small lagoon that was mostly under a big rock. It was nice, but the area for swimming was very small. We were lucky enough that we were the only one's there at the time. Otherwise it would've been crowded. There seemed to be a bar or similar and a lot of chairs and tables around the lagoon, but no-one was working there. We went to see the actual blue lagoon too, but it didn't feel very inviting for swimming. There were a lot of branches (big one's) in the water. There would've been a possibility to take a zip-line into the lagoon, but it was from about 10m high and didn't feel entirely safe so we skipped it. We had expected something more after reading all the reviews, so we were a bit disappointed. :/
On our way to the lagoon, we went to see 3 different beaches: Caleton, Grande and Diamante. There is a tourist information place on the main street (across to Sctotiabank), where there is a great German guy, rents scooters & cars and gives very good tips for what to do in the area. We rented a scooter for our whole visit so we could move easily from place to place. Our Airbnb was a bit from the center (3km), so the scooter was really good. To the Blue lagoon, we switched to a car, (170km in one day with that scooter is too much :P ) and the info guy compensated the price we paid for the scooter which was nice.
We followed our tourist information's recommendations that we would only check the beaches on our way to the lagoon and then decide which one we want to go to and stay for a longer time once we come back. Smart. We ended up staying at both Playa Diamante and Playa Caleton. Diamante was a smaller beach with really soft white sand and it went on and on. It was pretty beautiful! Someone was playing merengue on the beach so we danced a bit in the ocean, which was fun. We then took ourselves to Playa Caleton, because we felt that the atmosphere over there was the nicest. The water was clear and food delicious. We even decided to come there on the weekend after. That day the experience wasn't that pleasant, though. The beach was completely crowded, mainly by locals and this day the ocean was moving a lot, so the water wasn't clear. What disappointed us the most was a group playing really loud music on the beach from their stereos and also the way people threw their trash in the ocean or in the nature. We walked a bit next to the ocean and the path was covered with plates, cups, plastic bottles, paper, bags, etc. It just really made us sad when we saw how such beautiful place is being ruined with trash. :(
Trash is something that we have not seen this much on our journey yet. People just throw everything out of their cars/motorcycles/buses and the sides of the roads are covered with trash. Even today we had a man in a bus who twice threw a plastic cup on the street during the trip instead of putting them to a garbage bin. Also, some kids were playing on the beach and they just threw a plastic bottle into the ocean and let it be there. It doesn't help that every supermarket or a kiosk puts every item into a separate plastic bag and then everything in a bigger bag and maybe even one more just to be sure. If you buy a big bag of rice with a handle on the bag, even that is put into a double plastic bag! Why? The "packers" have looked at us like we are crazy people when we have wanted to pack our bags ourselves and we have put everything into bag-packs if possible.
One day we took a cable car, Teleferico, to Pico Isabel de Torres from Puerto Plata. (The website says it costs 200 pesos, but it was 350.) We had heard that it's wise to go there early in the morning in hopes of no clouds. We did that and arrived to Teleferico around 9am. This was good, because after we had walked around the "park", the mountain top was covered in clouds and one could not see down any longer. The ride itself was nice and we walked through the park relative quickly - it took maybe 1,5 hours or so. There were not that many tourists at this time of the year, which was nice - we could easily take photos without tens of other people in the pictures too. :p The main attraction is the statue of Jesus, but otherwise it's just mainly for the views and some nice plants, we would say. We didn't take a guide for our tour, but some did.
After Teleferico, Markus visited the '27 waterfalls', which is a big attraction for both tourists and locals. There are three packages one can take - 7, 12, or 27 waterfalls. There are natural water slides, canyons and jumps. Markus took 12 waterfalls and it took about 1,5 hours to complete the route. The route would've been nicer had there been more water in the slides etc. It hadn't rained enough so the river and waterfalls were quite dry. Maybe because of this it was a small disappointment, just one bigger slide and one bigger jump. Also the guide was not that good, he didn't want to talk that much, just few comments if asked.
Overall, Cabarete was nice, but what made it easy was the great experience we had at our airbnb. We were lucky to have such nice place and nice hosts. :)
Since we were not going to stay in Santo Domingo but going directly to Cabarete in the North, we had to find our way to a bus station. Markus negotiated a taxi price from 40$ to 20$ from the airport to Caribe Tours. This is from where many long distance buses leave. We were lucky and the faster bus left only 25 minutes after we arrived to the station. The bus ride took a bit over 4 hours and cost around 380 pesos/person, so less than 8€/person. The chairs in the bus were comfortable, but we noticed a cultural difference in the behavior of the fellow passengers. Everyone was listening to music or watching telenovelas or whatever - with no headphones on!? Seriously, is it just us or is that rude to other passengers?
During such long ride, we are not interested in hearing all sounds from computers and mobiles. Markus' friend Miika had warned us that it is freezing cold in the buses in DR. We got to experience this too. We had prepared ourselves with long, comfy sweatpants and long-sleeved hoodies, but we would've been glad with a winter jacket and a scarf! Some local people had winter jackets on inside the bus! We believe it was around 15 degrees Celsius at the coldest point. And when it's 27 - 30 degrees outside, the difference is not pleasant anymore. We don't know why the buses put the air conditioning to so cold.
We had found an apartment through Airbnb near Cabarete for 10 days. The owner had bought a few apartments and is currently renovating them for rental apartments. We got actually a nicer apartment than what we had booked, because it was the only one ready at the moment ;) We booked the apartment last minute, so we got it for a nice price, 16€/night. Not bad! We had decided that we would not move that much in DR, because it gets rather tiring changing places all the time and packing and unpacking every 3rd day or similar. This Airbnb experience was superb! Our hosts, Ralph and Tina took good care of us and even helped us with the transportation on arrival and departure. This location is not in Cabarete centrum, but one can rent a scooter, a car, or take a 'guagua', which is a minibus collecting people from different locations and dropping them off. More or less like a group taxi (very cheap - only 25 pesos, i.e. about 0,50 € per ride!). So if it's not very important to be in the center of the small village, we would highly recommend this place. It is also close to surf beaches, if that's what you're looking for.
Living room and kitchen
Bedroom with the best bed!
Our balcony with a small ocean view ;)
We went to Fitness Cabarete a few times for different exercise classes. We tried TRX (really efficient and cool what you can do with just two straps!), an exercise where we did 5 rounds of different muscle trainings (jumping on a box, throwing a weight ball, sit-ups etc.)
We should train more... But it's tough in this heat! :p
Views inside the first cave
The pond into which we could jump, cave #2
Our guide explaining that the water next to him is like quicksand and several meters deep, even though it doesn't seem like that!
On our way to cave #3
Markus relaxing in the pond some 25 meters below surface.
We took a salsa lesson from Alma Libre Dance School. It was cuban salsa, which we are not that familiar with. But it was fun for sure. :) We even practiced our learnings on a Thursday at Ojo club when they had their Latin night. There were not that many people there, so we didn't stay very long, but long enough to get a good sweat on :p
We went to see the blue lagoon, El Dudu as well. It was 350 pesos entrance and we were happy it wasn't more. We went first to a small lagoon that was mostly under a big rock. It was nice, but the area for swimming was very small. We were lucky enough that we were the only one's there at the time. Otherwise it would've been crowded. There seemed to be a bar or similar and a lot of chairs and tables around the lagoon, but no-one was working there. We went to see the actual blue lagoon too, but it didn't feel very inviting for swimming. There were a lot of branches (big one's) in the water. There would've been a possibility to take a zip-line into the lagoon, but it was from about 10m high and didn't feel entirely safe so we skipped it. We had expected something more after reading all the reviews, so we were a bit disappointed. :/
Markus swimming with the fish
The blue lagoon itself
We followed our tourist information's recommendations that we would only check the beaches on our way to the lagoon and then decide which one we want to go to and stay for a longer time once we come back. Smart. We ended up staying at both Playa Diamante and Playa Caleton. Diamante was a smaller beach with really soft white sand and it went on and on. It was pretty beautiful! Someone was playing merengue on the beach so we danced a bit in the ocean, which was fun. We then took ourselves to Playa Caleton, because we felt that the atmosphere over there was the nicest. The water was clear and food delicious. We even decided to come there on the weekend after. That day the experience wasn't that pleasant, though. The beach was completely crowded, mainly by locals and this day the ocean was moving a lot, so the water wasn't clear. What disappointed us the most was a group playing really loud music on the beach from their stereos and also the way people threw their trash in the ocean or in the nature. We walked a bit next to the ocean and the path was covered with plates, cups, plastic bottles, paper, bags, etc. It just really made us sad when we saw how such beautiful place is being ruined with trash. :(
Playa Grande
Happy Edda :D
The cutest puppy at Playa Grande <3
Playa Diamante
Playa Caleton
Playa Caleton
Trash is something that we have not seen this much on our journey yet. People just throw everything out of their cars/motorcycles/buses and the sides of the roads are covered with trash. Even today we had a man in a bus who twice threw a plastic cup on the street during the trip instead of putting them to a garbage bin. Also, some kids were playing on the beach and they just threw a plastic bottle into the ocean and let it be there. It doesn't help that every supermarket or a kiosk puts every item into a separate plastic bag and then everything in a bigger bag and maybe even one more just to be sure. If you buy a big bag of rice with a handle on the bag, even that is put into a double plastic bag! Why? The "packers" have looked at us like we are crazy people when we have wanted to pack our bags ourselves and we have put everything into bag-packs if possible.
One day we took a cable car, Teleferico, to Pico Isabel de Torres from Puerto Plata. (The website says it costs 200 pesos, but it was 350.) We had heard that it's wise to go there early in the morning in hopes of no clouds. We did that and arrived to Teleferico around 9am. This was good, because after we had walked around the "park", the mountain top was covered in clouds and one could not see down any longer. The ride itself was nice and we walked through the park relative quickly - it took maybe 1,5 hours or so. There were not that many tourists at this time of the year, which was nice - we could easily take photos without tens of other people in the pictures too. :p The main attraction is the statue of Jesus, but otherwise it's just mainly for the views and some nice plants, we would say. We didn't take a guide for our tour, but some did.
Great views!
Huge, beautiful flowers!
Cannot see much if it's cloudy! This was on our way back.
After Teleferico, Markus visited the '27 waterfalls', which is a big attraction for both tourists and locals. There are three packages one can take - 7, 12, or 27 waterfalls. There are natural water slides, canyons and jumps. Markus took 12 waterfalls and it took about 1,5 hours to complete the route. The route would've been nicer had there been more water in the slides etc. It hadn't rained enough so the river and waterfalls were quite dry. Maybe because of this it was a small disappointment, just one bigger slide and one bigger jump. Also the guide was not that good, he didn't want to talk that much, just few comments if asked.
Two best falls of the 12 waterfalls.
Overall, Cabarete was nice, but what made it easy was the great experience we had at our airbnb. We were lucky to have such nice place and nice hosts. :)
Enjoyed reading your blog entry. Best wishes on your 9 month journey. Hope you come back to Cabarete sometime. Ralph & Tina
ReplyDeleteNice that you read our blog! :) we're in La Romana now and flying out in 2 days.
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