Rachel Visits us in the DR…Continued, Part 3

OK, are you all enjoying our adventures so far? We sure hope so! We have just a bit more fun to share with you in Rachel’s last few day here in the Dominican Republic so here we go….

Day eight Rachel in the DR

First stop of the day was a much anticipated trip… a 2,565 foot (800 meter) cable car ride up Mt. Isabela de Torres, the peak overlooking Puerto Plata.

Rachel posing for me in front of the Pureto Plata Teleferico.

It reminded me of the cable car ride that I took with my dad in Albuquerque, New Mexico, high and scary! Here they call it the Teleferico and it just happens to be the only cable car in the Caribbean.

On top of the mountain you get a great view of the ocean as well as Puerto Plata below.

View from the top as we wait for the car to arrive to take us back down.

Taking a much deserved rest stop..we hiked the whole park!

Waiting to go up in the cable car to the top of Mt. Isabela de Torres, the peak overlooking Puerto Plata.

I thought that this was so funny…here we are being entertained by a band as we waited to go up in the cable car and because there WIFI everyone has their minds on something else…they did not even notice me taking their picture either … LOL!

At the top of Mt. Isabela de Torres a statue of Christ looks out over all of Puerto Plata, similar to the one in Rio de Janeiro Brazil.

We took it to the top of Mt. Isabel de Torres to see the statue of Christ Redeemer (a reproduction of the Rio De Janerio statue). At the top of the mountain it is like being in a tropical forest with gorgeous trees and plants covering every inch and we even found a neat little cave too.

The views from the top of this mountain were incredible and downright scary!

Baby snake that we saw at top of mountain…not sure what kind.

Cave on the top of Mt. Isabela de Torres.

After we enjoyed out time on top of Mt. Isabel de Torres we headed to Luperon so that Rachel could meet some of our cruising friends. Rachel thought that it was great that there were so many people here that spoke English! We had a nice dinner at local restaurant called Patula’s and stayed at a beautiful room that one of our friends offers right below their house overlooking the ocean. Rachel got lucky, we all got lucky because we did not have stay on the boat that night…it was a very hot night and there was a strong storm that swept through the harbor…the storm that even made a few boats drag…thankfully not our though!

Day nine Rachel in the DR

We woke up early the next morning to get on the road again because we had big plans for the day. We were going to visit the 27 waterfalls and then head back to Jarabacoa.

Just outside Puerto Plata is a place called Damajaqua is where you can find the 27 waterfalls. Nestled between the rolling hills of the Northern Corridor mountain range, the 27 Waterfalls of Rio Damajagua are known as one of the best eco-adventure sites in the DR. Visitors can jump, slide and swim through Mother Nature’s water park.

The first step of our journey was to cross this swing bridge to get to the falls.

It is a series of 27 waterfalls. You pay your entrance fee according to how high you want to hike. You can hike up to the first 7, 1-14 or 1-27 (all the way to the top). Unfortunately it hadn’t rained in a while and it was suggested that there was just enough water to enjoy just the first seven falls so that’s what we did.

Crossing small creeks to get to the falls.

It was about a 20 minute hike to the first fall. We walked through winding paths and rivers to reach it. When we got there just as we expected the water was very cold! We had to jump right in and swim to the ladders where we would climb up the fall. There were times we were swimming through little caverns, with the water about 12 foot deep and only about 5 foot wide.

This is the base of waterfall one and two – it is a swimming hole that those waiting can swim at while waiting – in order to get up to the other waterfalls you must climb up the little waterfall on the left and then up the wooden ladder.

This is one of the caverns that you have to swim through to get to the next waterfall – it was breathtaking!

Sometimes we climbed rickety ladders that looked as if they’d been there since the dawn of mankind. Sometimes we scrambled over small inclines like amateur rock climbers. Then there were the rock slides—the good kind. In certain places, years of water rushing between the rocks had created smooth chutes you could slide down to splash into the pools below. Sometimes we had to pull ourselves up knotted ropes, climbing up slick rock surfaces as the weight of the waterfall gushed into our faces, with guides on the top level helping to pull us up. What a trip…this place was too cool!

Once you hike up, the only way down was to jump or slide down the waterfalls. Rachel and Brian loved the jumping and sliding part…me on the other hand..well lets just say I did it but, would I do it again? I’d have to think hard on that one because sliding down the bigger chutes was downright scary! Rachel said that she wished that she had a camera so that she could have taken a picture of my face….I am sure that I looked very scared because…I was! (We did not have a camera but the pictures that you see are from the internet)

I think that the 27 (or in our case 7) waterfalls was one of the best places that we visited on our trip. It was incredibly fun and such a magical place to visit!

Beautiful!

After the waterfalls we headed back to Jarabacoa to settle down for the night so that we would be closer to the Santiago airport where Rachel would be flying out of. Time for one last waterfall…this time we made the trip to Salto Jimenoa Dos.

Of course since Rachel had already seen Salto Jimenoa Uno she had to see Dos too!! This fall is very pretty but is is only a “looker” meaning that you can’t swim underneath it, not that you would want to because it would probably crush you! It is a very powerful waterfall and it was flowing even more than when we saw it last.

Salto de Jimenoa Dos

It does have a swimming area but the cool part of seeing this fall is that you have to walk over some pretty flimsy suspension bridges to get to it.

You can see the steps and swinging bridges all along side the river.

Scary…especially when Rachel was swinging the bridge all over the place!

Day 1o Rachel in the DR

Ahhh…a day of relaxation, laying by the pool, catching some sun, having a coco frio…yum…and paragliding!

Rachel’s new favorite treat…coco frio…yum!

Enjoying our last day…sitting by the pool

OK, so we got to lay by the pool, get some sun, have coco frio but the paragliding was jut not meant to be for Rachel. We called flying Tony and made plans for Rachel to para-glide. We drove to the top of the steep mountain and waited and waited and waited for the wind to die down so that she could make her jump.

All smiles waiting to go paragliding.

You can see from the windsock that there is a bit of wind here on top of the mountain.

Rachel looking over the edge where she would be taking off from.

Nice looking shirt!

It was a no go. The sun set and the winds did not die. Tony said that we would try again in the morning and hopefully the winds would cooperate. I have to mention that Flying Tony is awesome…he even offered the shirt right off of his back when Rachel said that she liked it…what a giving person!

Rachel’s last day in the DR….sniff, sniff… yup, tears are coming!

We woke up early eagerly awaiting Flying Tony’s call so that Rachel could go paragliding. Tony called but again the winds were not right and Rachel would not be able to go…bummer! It was just not to be but maybe there’s a reason that it worked out that way. The world works in mysterious ways. We had a wonderful time with Rachel and I’m sure that she had a blast too! Time to pack our bags and to get everything to fit for our trip home.

Rachel on her way home…

Sending Rachel off at the airport was a sad day….yes of course, I cried! In fact I cried the whole way back to Luperon…so sad to see my baby go home. We wished that she could stay here with us but it was not to be so. It seemed that the gods felt the same way about Rachel leaving and one thing after another went bad for us this day.

Yes…it’s a selfie, but I somehow wanted a picture of Brian riding us triple on the motorcycle 🙂

Riding home on our motorcycle we got caught in a torrential downpour and had to ride though deep puddles on the highway drenching us thoroughly. Then our gas tank cracked and gas sprayed all over us for the remainder of the ride. What fun.

Luckily we made it back to Luperon OK.

Then we arrived back in the harbor only to find out that our boat had a new address….as in it was not where we left it. Yikes…now this is not what you want! We later found out that a new boat came into the anchorage while we were gone and anchored right in front of us. Unfortunately their anchor did not hold and they drug…you guessed it, right into us.

Thankfully we have a great cruising community and our friends jumped aboard our boat and threw out our spare anchor while others held off the boat that drug so that he could move off of us. They ended up damaging the starboard side of our ama and drug us further back in the anchorage. Thankfully there was no one behind us or they would have joined the party too!

To add insult to injury when they later re-anchored their boat they took our spot!

Brian’s been busy repairing the damage and we’ve had a chance to meet the folks on the boat that drug into us. They are nice people and thankfully they were willing to work with us to get the repair completed.

So as you can tell Rachel’s last day with us was a very sad day in all! Maybe if she had decided to stay with us here the gods would have been happier and our events for the day would have turned out differently!

All joking aside it was awesome to see Rachel again and we miss her so much already. We made plans and we will see her again soon when we head south after hurricane season. We’re thinking the Virgin Islands will be a nice retreat for all of us when it’s cold this winter…we will have to look for somewhere that we can get all of our family to come to for a visit! Everyone get prepared we’re going to have to figure out how to make this happen!

Take care, we love and miss you all!!

Jennifer and Brian