Hidden islands in the caribbean driver#

“The house isn’t far, we can walk there,” Paulina’s daughter says. The second chicken-bus ride takes my breath away as it winds down a narrow, coastal highway flanked by green hills and an iridescent blue sea.Īurelino and two of the cooperative’s women – including my host for the night, Dona Paulina, and her daughter – welcome me off the bus. The first three-hour ride takes me into the campo, or countryside, past vast plantain fields and roadside fruit vendors, until we enter bustling Barahona.

Hidden islands in the caribbean driver#

I’m to tell the driver to drop me off “donde la cooperativa de La Ciénaga,” another hour east. Aurelino, the cooperative’s tour guide, gives me specific instructions to reach their community center: catch a Caribe Tours bus from Santo Domingo to Barahona town, then transfer to a guagua, or local bus. My explorations lead me to Cooperativa para el Desarollo de la Ciénaga in the southwestern province of Barahona. Over the months that followed, exploring the country south to north and center, I stumbled on a world of locally run accommodations, community tours, and breathtaking island scenery.

My mission was to unearth immersive experiences, away from the DR’s resort towns. When I was writing a guide book on the Dominican Republic, located between Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Greater Antilles, I traveled around the country for a year.

Overnight in Valle Nuevo’s cloud forest.

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