Yesterday we took an excursion by horse to a remote beach, an amazing lookout point, and Taino cave. The tour was arranged by Karin at www.Larancheta.com. For sure it was expensive by my shoestring standards at 55usd per person, but it was an amazing 5 hour experience very unique to the area.
Karin took great care choosing gentle horses for the kids.
We had to ride through thick jungle to reach the rocky foot path climb to the beach. Along the way Karin taught us about the edible and medicinal plants in the area. We picked mangoes, limes, and some other fruit that I don't know the name of.
After a horse journey through the jungle and a steep rocky climb down we ended up here at the isolated Playa Madama.
Where driftwood makes an excellet raft.
This is a real picture, not a postcard!
While we were swimming Karin's assistant Almalfi climbed palm trees and collected three kinds of coconuts for us to try.
After a terrific coconut snack we climbed up to the lookout point to savor the beauty.
We always manage to find some activity that could cause serious injury.
Worth the risk, the view was amazing
After taking in the view we climbed back down to the beach and hiked up to a cave once used by the now extinct indigenous Taino people. We dug in the ground to look for 500 year old pottery shards, and of course we found several as this place is very unknown to the average tourist.
Our expert guide had much information to share about the cave, the kids were enthralled.
This pleasant little fellow,is a spider/scorpion combo that lives in the cave.
Jack and Almalfi rinsing their hands in a clear cave pool
Happy and tired after the adventure in Las Galeras to Playa Madama.
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Location:Dominican Republic
Playa Madama, how lovely it looks. Much better to be there than see it in books. The spider is creepy, the scenery makes us weepy. With all that good food are you friends with the cooks? Dora
ReplyDeletetotally awesome that you do these things on your summers and i hope the kids appreciate what you do for them :) we also travel to thee DR on a budget and agree with the posts about the downside of travel and lodging in a third world country. fellow eastern NC travelers ben and felicia from atlantic, nc
ReplyDeletelike to add if your spanish improves (difficult i know, i'm trying to learn it myself) the southwest of the DR is spectacular. i'll try to give a link to some pics when we return to the states as i am in samana now(heading to las galeras in a few days, ben
ReplyDeleteWould love to see your pic, post a link to your blog or where ever you might have some posted! Happy Travels!
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