Up at 6:30am and breakfasting at the hotel. Like the rooms, the restaurant part is outside under a big canopy thatched with dried leaves. The service was quite slow and our pancakes arrived with less than ten minutes to go before we were due to meet for our tour at 8am, so we had to eat pretty fast. We met our tour guide for the day at Reception - Erick - and got into his jeep to travel to our first destination: Charco Verde. We embarked on a 90-minute walk around this little area of the island, taking in wildlife (monkeys, termites, various birds, butterflies, a snake) and lots of different trees. Erick told us the story of Chico Largo, a local legend about a shaman who could transform into animals and died following a hunting accident mid-transformation, half man and half stag. The locals believe he still haunts the area and drags souls under the small lake in the area. Hmm.
Spot the snake?
We walked up to a viewpoint and enjoyed a view of the island's dormant volcano, Volcan Maderas (1394m) before returning to the jeep, having walked in a circle.
Next we went to one of the main towns, Altagracia. There we had a look at a church that was practically falling down, the parque central and a few pre-Columbian statues that had been found on the island, one of which features on the 500 cordoba note. Next we drove to a place on the edge of the rainforesty area where Erick showed us some of the petroglyphs that have been found on the island: large rocks with carvings dating back thousands of years. Some of the carvings were quite ambiguous - a monkey or a lion? - and open to interpretation. 
Next we stopped for lunch at a open air restaurant with a view of one of the main beaches, Playa Santo Domingo. It was beautiful. They actually had vegetarian lasagne on the menu, but I just wasn't hungry enough to take advantage of that, unfortunately. Another cheese sandwich and a few chips instead. The beach looked nice, with grey sand and palm trees, but there was quite a few waves and I didn't fancy swimming there so was quite happy when it was suggested that we skip the beach and head straight to our next destination, the Ojo de Agua. 
Once at the Ojo de Agua it was bikini time; it consists of naturally fed pools of volcanic water (cold, not hot) shaded by the rainforest. The pools have little fish in them, there's a rope swing if you fancy jumping in and lots of seating around the edge. It was really nice to cool down in the refreshing water, even if it became a little chilly after a while. After swimming I read for a while before we decided to let Erick take us back to the hotel for the day.
I pottered around, used the internet, showered and read my book in my rocking chair until it was time for tea. Rose, Natasha and I had decided to walk through the foliage along the waterfront to get to the next hotel along, as Rose had had a nice lunch there while we'd been on our little tour. It was nearly pitch black by this time, so we had to get by with light from mini torches. It felt like we were in an episode of Lost or something. Tea was unfortunately uninspiring for me - another plate of vegetables, with papas frites to try and fill me up. The walk back was even darker, and we could hear lots of wildlife, but the only thing I managed to spot was a giant toad bigger than my foot croaking away as we walked past it.
No comments:
Post a Comment