Salto Baiguate and scenery near Jarabacoa

Pico Duarte-Tour, June 3-6, 2000

Day 1: After driving to Jarabacoa and then on to La Cienaga, I meet my guide Eduardo. Within minutes we arrange everything for the tour. 1900 RD$ for guide, horse for the baggage and riding-mule. Departure will be 7am next day.

Day 2: Near the park-enterance: Eduardo crosses the river with the animals. Colorful vegetation all along the trail.

The trails are of very different quality. Left an example for a very good path, right for a bad one. Horses and mules have turned the path into a series of mud-holes.

                    Most of the time the trails are very stony and steep rising.

In the distance our destination for this day: Valle del Tetero. We left at 7 am at an altitude of 1050 m above sea-level. At noon we reached the intersection where the trail to the valley begins. From there (2050 m) we descended to 1400 m into the valley, where we arrived at 3 pm.

Two simple cottages serve as kitchen and sleeping place. Three more muchachos arrived with their mules.

Day 3: After long during thunderstorms the evening before the sun is back this morning. At 6:30 am the animals are ready for departure. The mule broke his rope at night but Eduardo could find him after a short search.

The spring of Rio Yaque del Norte and Yaque del Sur. The river divides after a short distance and runs into the Atlantic near Monte Cristi and into the Caribbean sea near Barahona.

Our place to sleep for the second night. The public phones are quite decorative but out of service and who would expect a Codetel-worker to make the 14-hour trip to fix them. Also it would be quite frustrating to have no change, as the phones are coin-operated...

The restrooms, nicely divided into “Damas” and “Caballeros”. Anyway, not much fun using them...