We had a great day of exploring

One of the boats we came to Samana from Luperon with was a catamaran named "Malolo" which means flying fish. They invited us and the people from the other boat "Windmachine" to go to the National Park Los Haitises. We were told that this park looks like Bora Bora in the French Polynesian Islands. Of course we could not leave the dock just for the day with out a "Dispatcho" from the Comondantcia. We don't understand why you need a Dispatcho to go some where just for the day when you can rent a car and drive around the country. We got underway about 8am for a 10 mile trip across the bay to the Park.

As we got closer we could see how beautiful it was, palm trees and rock mountains real lush jungle like.

The couple from Windmachine Ben and Abby have a drone so they did a video of us standing on the beach.



This is a very beautiful park BUT we are finding the Dominican people don't care about keeping there country clean. From what we saw on the beach it looks like all the garbage from Samana blows over to there park. Out of sight out of mind!

Garbage all over the beach.

 

We were told there was a restaurant near the park so off we went by dinghy to find this place. We were told that we have to go to the mangrove river and keep right. It was like traveling down a jungle river. I thought why would some one build a restaurant out here!



 

  

We traveled about 20 minutes up this river and in the middle of nowhere we came to a dock with about five big boats and an old pole barn. We didn't see a restaurant so we asked one of the guys working on a boat and he pointed to go up a driveway. We saw nothing but farm land so of we went up the driveway. There were some guys out in the field with horses bringing something in from the fields. We got closer and asked one of them what it was and he said rice. They would put 2 heavy bags on the horses to bring the rice out of the field to the road for the truck to pick up. It looked very hard on the horse because they had to walk through mud up to there knees with the heavy bags.

 

Notice what they use for a saddle. It's an old tire and the blanket looks like it's made of palm leaves.

  

We still can't see a restaurant but we were told by the farmers it's just up the driveway. Another 10 minutes and there it was in the middle of nowhere. This place was unbelievable. It was an echo resort called Paraiso Cano Honda.  here's a few pictures.

 

 

 

We all had a great day and got back to our marina around 7pm. This is a beautiful country and Laurie and I like it here. Today we have to say good buy to Malolo because they have to move on to get to Puerto Rico by the beginning of June. There is a weather window for the next few days so now's the time for them to go. This is what we like about this trip, meeting new friends and sharing our experience's with them. We hope to see them again soon.