Highs and Lows in the Dominican Alps

A blog post by Adam. First off, I don't think there is anything called the Dominican Alps, but I liked the way it sounded. There are, however, a series of mountain ranges in the Dominican Republic, with the largest in the center of the country around the quaint town of Jarabacoa. Being in the mountains, it's a bit cooler than the rest of the country and a popular weekend getaway for well-to-do Dominicans from Santo Domingo and Santiago - the DR's two largest cities. With a three day weekend and a visitor (family friend/pseudo cousin/god-sister Leah Ralph) in town, we decided to make it our own weekend destination.

We picked Leah up in Santo Domingo where she had been studying Spanish for a week and continued on up into the mountains. We had a reservation at Sonido del Yaque, a community based resort located just outside Jarabacoa. After a bit of searching we found the parking lot - a 45 degree sloping patch of gravel located just off of a curve of a narrow mountain highway, hovering inches above a series of ramshackle homes. We parked, wondering how we would we ever get the car off of this most precarious precipice. We then proceed by foot for 15 minutes down an extremely steep horse path to the village of Calabazas and Sonido del Yaque. When we arrived we were greeted by several friendly women who had no idea who we were and knew nothing about or reservation or the lunch we had pre-ordered. They agreed to whip up some rice and beans and we agree to wait, pondering our options. The rooms were the right price (it would be $12.50 for the four of us), but very basic (toilet, no toilet seat). The location was pretty, but swarming with biting insects. It was secluded, but down a very long path. It directly supported the community, but then there was the parking lot. By the time they served the food an hour and a half later, we had come to a decision. We would abandon the low lying Sonido del Yaque for a free and empty home perched high above Jarabacoa (owned by a Clinica de Familia board member). We treked back up the hill, solicited the help of a local to rescue our car from the parking lot, and went on our way. Already, we had experienced some ups and downs.

Before settling in at the free ridge-top house, we ventured farther up the mountains to Finca Altagracia, a coffee farm owned by Dominican American author Julia Alvarez. We took a tour through the beautiful grounds, picking a few of the sweetest oranges we have ever sampled along the way.

On our tour at Finca Altagracia.

After spending the night at the extremely comfortable home (complete with toilet seats), we ventured off higher into the mountains for a canyoning adventure. It included hiking and swimming through a river, jumping off rocks, zip lining, and rappelling down three waterfalls, one of which was about 100 feet tall. Mina declined to join us, but she happily documented our feat with her camera:



Melissa coming down the final waterfall.

All alive at the bottom.

That afternoon and following day we climbed up to and down to a few other dramatic waterfalls. The pine trees, the slightly cooler temperatures, and the silence at the mountain home where we slept, made it truly feel like a different country. It was wonderful.

Another beautiful waterfall.

A final waterfall.

Still, the high point was not the beautiful scenery but rather our time with Leah. I had never spent time with Leah without lots of other family around. It was great. She was so adventurous (she led the way on the canyoning adventure) and so easy going (if we had opted for Sonido del Yaque I have little doubt she wouldn't have objected). She had good stories and the great laugh that reminds me of her mom. Not that I was all that concerned, but she proved to be the ideal travelling companion. It's so nice to grow up and find that family (the people you're kind of stuck with for better or worse) are people you want to be around, people you would chose to spend time with of your own accord, not just out of obligation.

And it was good to be around family, including Leah, because we experienced one of the lowest moments of our six plus months away from home on our last night in Jarabacoa. We learned that our Great Aunt Margaret had passed away. We suspected that this might happen, given the fact that she went onto hospice just before our trip began, but it still wasn't easy. Only two weeks earlier my Great Uncle Sid had said she was doing so well. Mina, Leah, Melissa and I stayed up late talking to various family members on the phone and processing feelings of shock, sadness, and guilt for being so far away. We remembered Aunt Margaret. How she had always been so kind to us. How she always fed us so much. How she was always so committed to our Uncle Sid. We remembered Passovers together and Thanksgivings together. Just as it had been comforting to be with Mina to remember our grandfather, it was now helpful to have additional family, Leah, with us for this very low point up high in Jarabacoa.