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.

From Dominican Rep

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.

From Dominican Rep

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