{"id":2729,"date":"2013-06-22T21:32:20","date_gmt":"2013-06-23T01:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/?p=2729"},"modified":"2013-06-23T03:28:10","modified_gmt":"2013-06-23T07:28:10","slug":"dr-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/?p=2729","title":{"rendered":"DR…part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hard to believe we arrived here in Boqueron Puerto Rico a week ago and have yet to make a post. Although we promised to compose our Dominican Republic road trip while underway we didn’t write one word. We headed out from Luperon harbor about 1:00 pm on Tuesday and proceeded to beat our way into strong wind and waves until about 10:00 pm Friday night when we pulled into Buqeron harbor and were in no condition to be looking closely at anything other than our chart plotter. We did take respite for about 8 hours on Wednesday when we stopped in Escondido to sit out the trade winds for the day.<\/p>\n

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Anyway, we spent a total of 5 weeks in DR and found it to be a wonderful place to visit. Our home base for the time we spent in county was the village of Luperon. The harbor here is know to be one of the safest in the entire Caribbean and is busy with both cruisers and fisherman.<\/p>\n

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The town of Luperon has about 500 people and is very friendly and colorful. There are a couple of bars where the Gringos hang out: Wendy’s and JR’s. We had a ton of fun at each. The bars take turns with events like movie nights, open mikes, karaoke, and poker. You can spend every night busy if you want. The locals are among the most friendly people we have ever encountered. Everyone, young and old, greet you as you pass on the street. It is really a wonderful vibe.<\/p>\n

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For our first trip out of town we joined several other cruisers for a motor bike trip to a spot called La Isabela<\/a>. This is the spot where Columbus landed and established the first permanent settlement in the New World. It is also said to be the sight of the first Catholic Mass in the New World. The settlement was largely abandoned after a few years and the surviving settlers, including Columbus’ brother Bartholomew, moved south and founded Santa Domingo.<\/p>\n

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Mary and I took a dinghy trip one day just outside the harbor to explore the local blow holes. These holes are caves where the waves crash in and force the water high up into the air. Unfortunately, the waves were too small to put on much of a show, but it was very pretty anyway.<\/p>\n

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A big highlight of our stay was our 7 day road trip. We joined forces with Dave and Wendy from Simple Life and headed to Puerta Plata to pick up our rental. It was quite an experience learning to drive in DR. There are motor bikes everywhere, livestock on the roads, large holes and missing man hole covers, pedestrians, and very few rules. As we drove east out of Puerto Plata, we stopped at several small villages and spent our first night at Cabarete<\/a>. Wind surfing and kite surfing are very popular here and the town is kind of like a California beach town. Lots of beech bums.<\/p>\n

Next day we continued east and stopped for a swim at a beautful beach called Playa Grande<\/a>. The beach is miles long and much of it is being developed. I wish it could stay pristine.<\/p>\n

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After spending a stormy night in Las Terrenas<\/a>, we headed to the falls at El Limon<\/a>. No pictures, but we rode horses (I was on an ass. THE INDIGNITY) up a very steep trail and then hiked to the base of the falls.<\/p>\n

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Next stop, Las Galeras<\/a>. We spent a couple of nights here. There is a wonderful beach called Playa Rincon where we spent a day. Also, and outstanding dinner on the sea at El Cabito.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Next stop, a dash south the the capital, Santa Domingo. We found a really cool little hotel call El Beatario<\/a>. The building is 500 years old, was in the old town district, and made a great base for exploring. Santa Domingo is the home of the first Catholic church on this side of the Atlantic. This was the first building we explored.<\/p>\n

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Later, Wendy met a most excellent tour guide who lead us on a multi hour walking tour of the city. Not only did we learn lots of history, our guide, Joe, helped us with our Spanish.<\/p>\n

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Although Mary skipped this one, I had one more tour in me. Another motor bike journey on the back roads to Puerta Plata. Although it was a beautiful trip, it was not without drama. The route was quite challenging and the cruising bikers pretty inept. Out of 12 bikes, 6 went over at one time or another. Our buddy Herman on WhiteWing<\/a> ended up spending a night in the hospital. Turned out Mary made a good decision on this one.<\/p>\n

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All and all, a pretty wonderful visit. We loved the beauty of the land and people but it does take some time to settle in. I think if I had just a few days here my impression would not be as positive. The place grows on you. It is a very special place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hard to believe we arrived here in Boqueron Puerto Rico a week ago and have yet to make a post. Although we promised to compose our Dominican Republic road trip while underway we didn’t write one word. We headed out … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2y1a7-I1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2729"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2921,"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2729\/revisions\/2921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}