Tag: excursions

Yes, we are in Puerto Rico and have been since April 11^th, but I never finished telling you about our time in Luperón, so that’s what I’m going to do this week.

We were in Luperón from March 13^th to April 6^th. It was longer than we’d planned, but we made good use of it. Luperón is a popular cruiser destination. Many use it as a stopover as they travel to or from the Caribbean Sea. It’s the best hurricane hole in the Caribbean hurricane belt, so many leave their boats there for hurricane season, some staying aboard, others choosing to return to their home bases on land. Other cruisers end up staying indefinitely. We joined the Dominican Republic Boaters & Cruisers FB group and the Luperón Boaters & Cruisers FB group. There we got all our questions about the area answered. The Luperón group was our go-to for things to see and do, including socializing with other cruisers. It is a very welcoming community, both the expatriate cruisers and the locals. The locals predominantly speak Spanish, so I got to practice my Spanish. I’m afraid I was lax in my journaling during those four weeks, so this post captures the highlights though not necessarily the chronology. Let’s dive in…

Car excursions

I already wrote about our trip to Santo Domingo with our friends on S/V Guajira. 

Dave and I rented a car two more times for our own land excursions. The first time we went to 27 Charcos (waterfalls) of Damajagua, a National Park about an hour drive east of Luperón. We did their zipline/7 waterfall + lunch package for a measley $47 USD each. Most people go for just the falls, so our “group” was just us, two other people, and our guide, Agosto. We donned our life vests (for the falls) and helmets (for zipline & falls) and started off for the five ziplines and two suspended (by ropes) bridges. It was our first zipline and it was a good starter set for us. After the final zipline, it was a short walk to the first of the 7 waterfalls we would do. Because of their years-long drought, the Río Damajagua (Damajagua River) has only 7 of the 27 waterfalls open anyway. There were some big tour groups there from the cruise ships in Puerto Plata, but the guides kept things organized and moving smoothly. We were impressed. At most of the falls you slid into the pool below on a natural rock slide. There was the option to jump into two of the seven pools. We jumped at the first one, which was only about 12 feet high. We took the slide at the other jump point which was 18 feet high, the highest fall of the set. Once in a pool, we waded and/or swam the short distance to the next waterfall. The water was cool and refreshing. We had a ball! At the end, it was about a ¾ mile hike back to the start where we had a buffet style lunch of Dominican food that was quite good. 

On our way back to Luperón, we decided to keep going west a bit to La Isabela, the site of the first Spanish settlement by Christopher Columbus in 1493. We waited for the guide who spoke a little English, so between that and our little Spanish, we got the gist of the history. Columbus and the settlers were only there three years, ultimately driven out by malaria. Columbus’ son, Diego, settled in what is now Santo Domingo. Sometime in the 1940s, some visiting dignitaries were coming to visit the site. Some person of import asked the site be “cleaned up.” The person tasked with the job decided that meant all the structures should be razed. Yikes! So much for history. The site is now marked off with stones indicating structure locations. There was a small museum, but we didn’t have much time inside and it was all in Spanish. We got the gist of the history anyway. (slideshow below, click right or left arrows)

Another time we rented a car and drove to the Puerto Plata area. We started by driving to the Teleférico (cable car) to ride to the top of Mount Isabel de Torres, a National Park and botanical garden at 2600 feet. It overlooks Puerto Plata at the coast, and you can see all the way to Sosua to the east. The roundtrip cable car was only $10 USD/person. We did wait 90 minutes for the ride up, but it was well worth it! (There was no wait for the ride down.) When you first reach the top, you are greeted by the large Christ the Redeemer statue. They’ve done a beautiful job laying cement and stone walkways through the natural tropical forest at the top and interspersing plantings of local flora. There is also a walkway along the outer edge overlooking Puerto Plata and the ocean. Gorgeous views, especially on a clear day like we had! After we descended, we drove the short distance to the small colonial section of Puerto Plata. We walked through an old church, walked the Malecón (walkway along the ocean), and toured the small Fortaleza de San Felipe (that’s a fort). It was a lovely day.

Activities in Luperón

If you’ve been following my blog for the past two years, you know we love to explore ruins. We visited many in the Bahamas, and Luperón provided a couple as well. The first was the fairly recent ruin of the Luperon Marina Yacht Club on of the west side of the bay. I have been unable to find details of its closing, but it was still open in the early 2000s, maybe even into the early 2010s. You can see a few pictures of it here [link] from when it was still open. I’ve included here a couple of pictures that we took for comparison. Now, one of the local expats conducts morning yoga among the remaining columns twice a week. 

The more impressive ruins, however, were of the massive Luperon Beach Resort. It was shut down around 2011/2012, the rumor being that the owners were convicted of money laundering, possibly associated with the mafia. I haven’t been able to verify this from any legitimate source, not that I looked very hard. Click here for pictures of it in its heyday. Yes, it is still listed online. It boasted over 650 rooms between two “hotels” which was really several buildings. We saw at least 3 or 4 giant pools, an activity area with an outdoor stage and amphitheater, various bars (usually at the pools), a couple restaurants, a casino, a gift shop, what must have been the grand entrance, and more. From the road, it’s all fenced because one is not supposed to trespass, I suppose. We walked all the way down to Playa Grande (big beach), passed the current food stalls/bars, and walked right into the ruins behind them (no fence there). It was impressive, the biggest, most intact ruins we’ve seen so far in our travels. From what I have been able to find online, it seems the joint was shut down very quickly and completely abandoned. Locals stripped it of every usable, salvageable item they could and left the rest. The only life there now are the beach visitors, and the cows that freely roam the town and the ruins. It will continue to slowly deteriorate. I find it unlikely at this stage that anyone would invest in that property. At this point, everything would have to be torn down and hauled away before rebuilding could happen. What a waste. Still, it was a great way for us to spend a few hours (over two days) exploring. 

We also made the trek into town a few days each week we were there. The town has a very well kept dinghy dock just for cruisers, plus another two for the local fishermen. Sometimes we went ashore for lunch, alone or with other cruiser friends. We got to sample some excellent Dominican fare! We walked to the Claro store to buy/renew data packages. We went to the Supermercado Fresco or one of the street vendors for fresh produce. Unlike the Bahamas, the DR has robust agriculture. We were spoiled with fresh, local bananas, pineapples, tomatoes and potatoes. Once we walked downtown to a street corner where a local roasts a pig each week and sells the meat until its gone. We managed to get there early enough to get some- yum! 

There’s a small boutique hotel with restaurant and bar called New Amsterdam that is owned by a Danish expat and his Dominican wife. Most Fridays they open their pool & restaurant to local expats and cruisers and sell delicious wood fired pizza (he built the oven himself). Most Sundays they open to the same group, this time offering a single meal option that they prepare a lot of. We attended each of these once with some new cruiser friends, many of whom are now our friends and buddy boats. Another expat/transient cruiser event that happened weekly was the Thursday “Captains Table” gathering at Las Velas restaurant, the restaurant at the Puerto Blanco Marina on the west side of the bay (below the ruins of the old yacht club). They offer a special dish and several drinks at a discount, or you can order off the full menu. We went there twice. One Friday, Dave & I volunteered to help a local expat group prepare for their free, monthly flea & tick treatments and de-worming clinic for locals (and expats) with dogs and cats. About a dozen of us spent about two hours filling around 1000 oral syringes with three different medications. 

When we weren’t in town, we walked some trails on the west and east banks of the entrance to the harbor. On the east side there was another planned but abandoned resort, this one barely started, and there were trails along the water and to a blowhole. On the west side there was a little beach with some trails through the countryside. A couple of times we got permission from the Armada to leave the harbor for a few hours to pump out our holding tanks and make water where it was more clear than in the harbor. We also spent a couple of days aboard just laying low and/or doing boat chores. 

We very much enjoyed our time in Luperón. The locals were friendly and willing to help me work on my Spanish. I’m getting better at speaking it, but hearing it is still challenging because, like me, locals talk a mile a minute. I understand why some cruisers stop here and never leave. It’s friendly, inexpensive, there’s local agriculture, incredible beauty, and more. Still, we had a different end point on our agenda, and we needed to make some miles, so we were pleased when we could finally depart on Easter weekend, despite the rigamarole of the Armada rules. (If you missed that post, you’ll find it here).

That completes our time in Luperón. I’ve been too busy enjoying Puerto Rico with our buddy boats to spend much time sorting through photos. So enjoy the handful I’ve included here. When I have more time, I may make slide shows out of more of them. Next week I’ll start writing about our time here in Puerto Rico. Until then, stay safe and take care of each other!