Road Trip Time Again! Constanza and Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic

Hello all, we have lots to share with you. We have been quite busy the last week traveling with our friends Bob and Georgette (fellow cruisers also staying in Luperon harbor). We traveled to the towns of Constanza and Jarabacoa up in the Codillera Mountains, referred to as the Dominican Alps. We headed out on Sunday morning on our motorcycles even though we had heard from a few people that the bikes would probably not make it up the steep mountains. We decided to give it a try anyways and thought that if we had any troubles that we would just rent a car. Thankfully we had no problems at all, our bikes made it no problemo and we had a wonderful adventure!

We have so much to post that I am going to make this a two part, one for each city…

View from the main street in Constanza…beautiful mountains in the background

First stop Constanza….We had originally planned on making Jarabacoa our first stop since it was closer to Luperon than Constanza but when we arrived in Jarabacoa we were a bit overwhelmed with the size of the city and the traffic zooming all over the place and in every possible direction. We drove around a bit looking for a hotel and eventually stopped and asked a local for a suggestion. (oh yea…we did not make reservations anywhere or make any plans for a certain place to stay. We wanted to check out the lodging first rather than trust photos on the internet. You never know what you are going to get!) The local we asked suggested a hotel and he said it was about 15km away so we set off to look for it. We couldn’t find the hotel that he told us about but we now found ourselves halfway down the road to Constanza we continued on to planning to back track to Jarabacoa on the way back.

The ride through the mountains between Jarabacoa and Constanza is absolutely breathtaking!

Bob and Georgette posing for me and Brian gazing at the mountains below

It is a high mountain pass with incredible views below. Lots of crazy drivers too! You really have to watch for the oncoming traffic because they like to use both lanes…that’s where it was nice to have a motorcycle rather than a car because it’s easier to avoid traffic when you only have two wheels!

It was neat to watch this man working his oxen on a very step hill…see him there in the middle?

Neat farmhouse on the roadside

The road took us through what we called the “Valley of Vegetables”…the cities along the way had every type of veggie growing that you can imagine and lots of trucks transporting loads of carrots, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, onions, garlic, peppers,potatoes, tomatoes, squash and lots of other yummy veggies. It would be an ideal place for me to live!! Vegetarian heaven!

Pretty hillside in Constanza…look at all of the veggies growing…mmm..getting hungry just looking at all of them!

When we arrived in Constanza we drove around a bit to check it out. The city was much smaller than Jarabacoa and we were able to find a nice place to stay without any problem. For 800 pesos (just under 20 dollars) we found a nice mom and pop hotel/restaurant called Mi Casa. Nice clean place and centrally located so that we could walk around town where everything was. The owner Jose was very attentive and was even the cook when we ordered breakfast. I finally got to have some mangu (mashed plantains with pickled onions on top…sounds strange but is yummy!)

Carrots off to the market

We checked in, unloaded our gear and set out to explore the town. We arrived on Sunday and strange as it sounds this is the big party day for the locals. We hung out at a park for a while which is the center of everything in town. There is everything there from children running and playing, to old couples holding hands walking around to clubs thumping with loud music and ladies wearing little to nothing… or so it seemed, (maybe that’s why Bob and Brian seemed to have goofy grins on their faces the whole time we where there…). There were vendors selling hotdogs, fried chicken and other fried unidentifiable meats, ice-cream, boys wanting to shine your shoes for 10 pesos, and anything that you could think of for sale, this was the place to be! We had a fun first night hanging out and people watching.

Hanging in the park, Constanza

The next morning we set out for adventure looking for the Salto Agua Blancas (waterfall). It is 1.680 m above sea level and is considered to be the highest waterfall in the Antilles. It consists of two falls that together form an impressive height of 83 m. (272 ft)

Aguas Blancas Waterfalls seen from across the mountains, we had to go up and down and around to get there…pretty ride though!

Aguas Blancas Waterfalls from far away

Brian had researched the maps and roads in the area and he was able to guide us there.

Just to give you an idea of how big the Aguas Blancas Waterfalls were look at Bob standing at the bottom…

(Brian loves his maps and I’ll bet that he had the whole area memorized!) Riding to the waterfall was a journey in itself. Off the beaten path would be one way to put it. A ok but steep up and down dirt road lead us through tiny villages that brought us to the road that lead us to the falls. The road to the falls was the best challenge yet. A very steep one lane road filled with ruts and potholes, sometimes filled with water and mud and loose gravel led us to the waterfall. It was a bit dicey on the motorcycles but we made it!

This was the nice part of the road on the way to the waterfalls…I did not get a photo of the rough part because I was holding on for dear life to Brian…:-)

Salto Agua Blancas was beautiful but very cold! The average temperature of the water is 10°C. (about 50 degrees). We tested it out just to be sure and agreed that we would not be swimming today, at least not here! It was nice to cool off our feet and the views were incredible!

Climbing, down, down, down

Burr…cold water and frozen toes for this photo! 50 degrees cold!

Aguas Blancas Waterfalls

We stayed two nights in Constanza, exploring the town and enjoying the nice cool air of the mountains. It was a nice treat to be out of the humidity up high in the cool mountain air. We had a great time in Constanza but it was time to move on so we packed up our bags and headed out to see what other adventures lay ahead for us in Jarabacoa.

Stay tuned for part two….

Love you all!

Jennifer and Brian