3rd day and the rest

3rd day



For our last day with the car, we were planing a long trip along the North coast of the island all the way to Samana (250km from Puerto Plata). Since we knew already how to ask for driving directions and driving along the coast wasn't difficult anyway, we were advancing fast and at 10am we already arrived at our first spot to visit the Laguna Gri Gri.
You can rent a boat there with a guide for some 20EUR and cruise around the Mangrove forest and the famous cave of the winds a bit further out along the coast.

From Dominican Rep

The forest is providing a nest for hundreds of various bird species and other types of exotic animals. The bay itself is named anyway after its fish, which is to be found in the waters here.

From Dominican Rep

When driving along the coast, you can find many beaches, which are used only by locals and a limited number of tourists. We stopped at Playa Grande for a short refreshing pause. As you can see it is a 2km long stretch of sandy beach with horizontal palms and almost nobody around.

From Dominican Rep

Our last stop of the day was the Blue Lagoon waterfall in Samana. It is a famous waterfall on the island, and is the easiest to approach on horseback.

From Dominican Rep

It is a nice experience to see the houses of the locals along the trail and to cross the small creeks on the horse.

From Dominican Rep

Of course it was very touristy and locals try to make as much money out of it as possible. Just as a note the guy giving us the horses, wanted to ask 7000pesos for the trip, which we got at the end for 1500 pesos. Still I think it was worth the time and money to get there.

From Dominican Rep

The biggest adventure of the trip was still ahead of us; driving home 200km in full darkness and not to hit any pedestrians or unlit motorcyclist on the non marked and winding narrow roads.

From Dominican Rep

The rest of time of the time in the Dominican Republic we spent at the already well known pool bar and on the beach of the resort, where finally the weather turned out to be also perfect for the last 3 days. Judit loved it, but for me the air temperatures of 28C were a bit to much after cold in Yellowstone just a week before:)
Despite all "difficulties" and "suffering" we got a nice tan at the end of our holiday. See pic below.

From Dominican Rep

Day 2

Exploring Sosua and Cabarete, two coastal touristic villages


Still dark and rainy... We head to two nearby villages for an easy day after the 500km drive the day before. Sosua is a "tiny" (pop. 10000) former fisherman's village with a nice beach and lot of shops for tourists.

From Dominican Rep

According to Lonely Planet it has the most vibrant night life as well, which we experienced later in the evening. You see in the bars lots of couples; where usually the man is Western European or North American 60+ years old and local girls 20 something years old. That is the village of real love...


Cabarete is not that "wild" with a lot of hotels, restaurants and the best wawes and wind for surfers and kite surfers.

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We had there freshly squeezed juice from seasonal fruits, which were passion fruit, mango and papaya.

From Dominican Rep

Since it was cloudy we went back to our resort, where we spent the rest of the time close to the pool bar.

From Dominican Rep

Dominican Republic
Lost in paradise

Just after one day returning from the States, I left again. This time it was a non adventurous relaxing trip to a 5star RIU resort in the Dominican Republic 10 hour flight from Amsterdam.

From Dominican Rep

The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries. Both by area and population, the Dominican Republic is the second largest Caribbean nation (after Cuba), with 48,442 square kilometres (18,704 sq mi) and an estimated 10 million people. Further it has the highest peak of the Caribbean, which is over 3000m high.

You face yourself to the above fact when you drive your rental car through some of the numerous villages, never heard about before, still having the size of The Hague i.e. 600000 and not having a single road sign to give instructions about directions. The only way to find your way is to ask the locals. The average wage is around 100usd a month, but as it seems you can find some good business here.

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I am not necessarily pointing on tourism, but drugs prostitution and probably politics. After this short introduction let s start it at the beginning.

As we arrived it was dark and raining, which is not exactly what you dream about a Caribbean Island. Judit´s phone said it will go on with the rain for an other 3 days, so we decided to rent a car to explore the island on our self. Not only because I like adventure, but also because in Dominica, there is a price for the locals and an other price for the tourists. Typically they ask for a day program to visit some landmark around 80-120USD a person, which is actually the same or more in any western country.

Day 1
The plan was to visit Santiago de los Caballeros (second largest city in Dominica) and to drive up into the mountains and see the waterfalls of Jarabacoa, which supposed to be the biggest one according to the locals. (Later it turned out that all waterfall is the biggest in the country:))
After one hour driving I had to realise that I underestimated the easiness of driving and the size of the country.

From Dominican Rep

Driving rules; there are no rules really, not even the traffic light is taken seriously into consideration.
Size of the country; You can drive in each direction 200km easily on mountain roads between 50cc mopeds and full size trucks, so even if you do your best the average speed you can make is 40kmh.

I needed some adaptation  and enjoyed the driving pretty much, but taking into account the above circumstances and the fact that we were driving in circles for an hour in Santiago, we focused on the waterfalls. After 150km driving at some point the road was blocked, because the last rain washed it away, just 10km before the village. taking the other road took an other 100km, but at the end we found it.

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For further pics see

10th (last day)

From Casper to Denver via Cheyenne and the Rocky Mountain NP This morning I could see what I was driving on last night. By daylight it was even more scary to see the ice shining on the highway. The american call this phenomen; black ice. You have to concentrate not to do anything else only push the accelarator. No sudden braking or steering. Surprisingly I saw only 1 car, which had a slight accident because of the slippery road. The people here seem to be used to that. Actually these are good road conditions. At the village borders, there everywhere gates and signs for the scenario of bad road conditions; you are not allowed out on the highway.

From USA2012

From USA2012

Cheyenne is the capitol of Wyoming with a popuöation of 60000 and a history connected to the natives here. It is a nice small village, you can look at it 15 minutes by car.

From USA2012

Since I was on time I decided to make a turnout to the Rocky Mountain NP Scenic Byway, climbing up again to 9000 feet in elevation. This part of the rockies is surprisingly rich in vegetation compared to closeby desert like areas.

From USA2012

Also found my second home in the Rockies

From USA2012

At 2pm arrived in Denver and was faced directly to the consequences of the economic downturn in the States. I stopped 2 miles out from the downtown to fuel and was afraid to step out of the car. Everywhere junkies, homeless, latino people just hanging around on the streets doing nothing. The guy at the fuel station was sitting behind bulletproof windows... The downtown itself is not much different. Either you see young finance guys and their secretaries in nice suites and skirts or afroamericans with pants on the knee and the latinos in 5-6 layer of clothes, which is probaly their whole wardrobe.

From USA2012

The structure of the city is similar to Salt Lake City or other cities that size. Huge outskirts with family homes and a small dowtown with skyscrapers and parking houses. Still, there you can find some nice examples for the symbiosis of old and modern.

From USA2012

Also can find places for casting of the CSI Denver, if not existing yet.

From USA2012

For more pics as allways;

Tomorrow hopefully I can catch my flight home, because after changing my suitcase I leave with my loved girlfriend to the Dominican Rebublic for adventure of a different type and temperature, like I had in the last 10 days. I might blog about it as well, so keep an eye on my blog if you are curious about the Caribean....

9th day

Yellowstone to Casper Wyoming

I started the morning in the park driving along the road open to public trafic. It was a beautifull morning with very clear sky and sunshine and a freasing -25C.

I saw again some deers and bison looking for food under the snow.

From USA2012

After leaving the park I was driving to Cody Wyoming, where Buffalo Bill used to live. Cody is a real cowboy village with rodeos and cow boy stores.

From USA2012

From USA2012

To be cowboy is not cheap; price for a saddle is around 1500USD, a Stetson hat is around 300USD, some proeper boots with a spur around 500-1000USD.

The next village on the road was Thermopolis, a small village full with hot springs. The village should have once better days, today it seemed a bit worn.

From USA2012

My final station today was after driving 100miles in full darkness on shining ice in -20C Casper Wyoming. They say that in such a cold is actually not worth to clean the road, because it has quite a good grip actually. The salt wouldnt work anyway. They drive on this ice 60 mph easily. The secret is that you should not brake and should turn the stearing wheel. Luckilly that works on the ever straight roads here.

As reward for my all day driving I ve got a real american dinner in Johnny Js diner:)

From USA2012

They had my favourite desert the rum raisin bread pudding as well

From USA2012

Tomorrow I supposed to arrive back to Denver to close the 3000mile loop I planned.

For more pics as allways;

8th day

Yellowstone experience on a snowcoach


Let me start about the Yellowstone NP with some facts.
According to Wiki; Yellowstone National Park spans an area of 3,468.4 square miles (8,983 km²), comprising lakes, canyons, rivers and mountain ranges. Yellowstone Lake is one of the largest high-altitude lakes in North America and is centered over the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest supervolcano on the continent. The caldera is considered an active volcano. It has erupted with tremendous force several times in the last two million years.Half of the world's geothermal features are in Yellowstone, fueled by this ongoing volcanism. Lava flows and rocks from volcanic eruptions cover most of the land area of Yellowstone. The park is the centerpiece of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the largest remaining, nearly intact ecosystem in the Earth's northern temperate zone.

It has yearly 3million visitors only 100000 out of them in the winter season. The reason is that most of the roads are covered with snow and closed in the winter. The only possibility to get into the heart of the park is either to get on a snowmobile or a snowcoach.

From USA2012

I booked my trip on such a coach in the last minute, but it worthed every minute. It is a verry efficient means of transport doing 2-4 miles on a gallon fuel, meaning having a consumption of 60-120l on 100km!!! Nice ha?


I saw some nice wildlife like coyotes and bison. The second one is not only looking impressive but also tastes very well as I tried it the evening before. There are around 150 wolfs and more than 2500 bisons living in the park.

From USA2012

From USA2012

Head-and-body length of the bison ranges from 2 to 3.5 m (6.6 to 11.5 ft) long, the tail adding 30 to 91 cm (12 to 36 in). Shoulder height in the species can range from 152 to 186 cm (60 to 73 in). Typical weigh can range from 318 to 1,000 kg and they can be very angry....

From USA2012

Probably not so many pictures are taken about the two famous waterfalls of the park, the upper and the lower fals, wherein the taller one is 308 feet (94 m) high, or almost twice as high as Niagara.

From USA2012

Already mentioned the thermal activity in the park, which results not only in gejzers and hot springs but also creating very nice ice formations on the vegetation around. The so called rime frost is creating on the side of trees against the wind, wherein the steam coming from the gejzir is continously condensating and freasing. See some examples next;

From USA2012

From USA2012

normal frost is existing as well:)

From USA2012

The caldera of the vulcano of the last erruption is some 40kms in diameter and if there would be an erruption, which is anyway due in any minute (the last big one was 700000 years ago and the one before 1,4 million year ago), the size would be equivalent of 1000 times the size of the erruption of Mt S Helens a few decades ago.

From USA2012

You see the water on the photo?

From USA2012

Tomorrow I am looking at the publicly accesable parts of the park and after heading to Cody the village where Buffalo Bill lived....

7th day

An other long drive from Salt Lake City to the heart of the Yellowstone NP.

I start today with braking news. I was stopped today by the police 2 times. Ones because I did not stop at a stop sign and the other time because I stopped to make photos about a deer. The result is two warnings...


I am really happy with that and apreciate the amiracan cops very much, they do their best.

I had a quick breakfast in the early morning, because I had a long day to do and did not know what weather i.e. road conditions I ll have to face when entering the high Rockies.

From USA2012

I had my first short stop at the Great Salt Lake, which is totally frozen in the winter. Wikipedia says;
"The Great Salt Lake, located in the northern part of the U.S. state of Utah, is the largest salt water lake in the western hemisphere,^[1] the fourth-largest terminal lake in the world.^[2] In an average year the lake covers an area of around 1,700 square miles (4,400 km²),^[2] but the lake's size fluctuates substantially due to its shallowness. For instance, in 1963 it reached its lowest recorded level at 950 square miles (2,460 km²), but in 1988 the surface area was at the historic high of 3,300 square miles (8,500 km²)"

From USA2012

Up the village of Idaho Falls I had excellent weather and roads and run an average of 85mph, but as I thought when entered Montana and the mountains the conditions changed dramatically in less than 10 miles distance.

From USA2012

From USA2012

That was half way to the northern entrance of Yellowstone. The west south and east entrances are closed in the winter, roads are not maintained. You can ride those section on your snowmobile if you want to.
I arrived finally at the park northern entrance at 4 in the afternoon and managed to see some deers and walked around the Mammoth hot springs.

From USA2012

From USA2012

By chance I found a very nice accomodation tonight, where the owner helped me to organise a snow coach tour for tomorrow, which will bring me into the park snow covered, from public access closed area. I am looking forward to enjoy it......


As allways for the latest pics;


https://picasaweb.google.com/aszaip/USA2012

6th day

A long drive from LV to Salt Lake City

I left 7 in the morning Las Vegas and arrived just with a pit stop at Salt Lake City  at noon after driving 450 miles. nobody can say that driving on US highways it slow. Even big trucks drive 80 miles per hour or the smaller but compared to a normal car still huge pickup trucks like Dodge Ram drive 90miles per hour.

The population of Salt Lake City is around 180000, a lot of them them being very friendly. I was walking on the empty streets of the downtown and saw only a few people, they were wearing white shirt with a black nameplate on it. The ladies unlike in Vegas were wearing long skirts and were socialising with newcomers to the city in a different way. Common with Las Vegas is that they immediatelly approach you, when stop moving or you get closer than 5metres to them.

Yes this is the capitol of the Mormons. As wikipedia defines Mormonism;

The Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, a religious movement beginning with the visions of Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844 the Mormons followed Brigham Young to what would become the Utah Territory. Today a vast majority of Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) while a minority are members of other independent churches.

They are lucky because their boss is between us, the living prophet seems to be a  very good business man.

From USA2012

The city is loaded with office buildings of the church and they follow a very agressive marketing as we all know. I went in to the visitor center and when I was just stopped moving for a minute a mormon stage allways tried to approach me. Their main temple is like a fortress with several chambers and secret conference rooms.

From USA2012

From USA2012

Tourists like me can not get access to the main church buildung but to a tent church, which is still impressive. It is the set what you see on some Tv chanels.

From USA2012

Tomorrow I am going an other 500 miles north to the entrance of Yellowstone NP. Let s hope there wont be to much snow and roads will not be blocked.

See the latest pics under;

https://picasaweb.google.com/aszaip/USA2012