Los Haitises National Park

Our first big activity in the Dominican Republic was Los Haitises National Park for which we had a guide named Halle.

We woke up early in the morning to catch a moto-taxi, or "moto-concho", down the 10 kilometer road to the park. The trip up the unpaved road was gorgeous! Unfortunately we were all hanging on too tight to get any pictures.

We started our day by going on a kayaking tour, which we wanted to do early because we were told that that would give us the best chance of seeing manatees. While we didn't see any manatees it was still an amazing trip. It started by going down a small river through the mangrove forest, similar to what we experienced in southern Florida. But it was much more fun to be out on the water.

There were many of the same birds as in the Everglades as well as crabs that were living among the roots of the mangroves. Unfortunately we once again don't have very many pictures of this part of the day, this time because we were all trying to avoid getting our electronics wet.

When we came to the end of the river it opened up in a small bay called Bahia de San Lorenzo, which is in the larger Samana Bay. We stayed in the Bahia de San Lorenzo, which was nice and protected and smooth for kayaking. We may not have seen any manatees in the bay, but we did see several dolphins. They were swimming fairly close to us and we hung out for a while just watching them. This time we didn't get any pictures because we were enjoying just watching them too much.

After hanging out with the dolphins for a little while we moved on to a small island where we docked to eat fruit and enjoy the surroundings. Halle brought us bananas as well as a guañabana, AKA soursop. Both were delicious. 

 

 

After the kayaking trip we had a few hours to hang out and get lunch at the Caño Hondo eco lodge while Halle took another group out on a boat trip. 

Caño Hondo is a huge hotel that is built into the side of the mountain. It had amazing architecture and amazing views. They also had a delicious lunch. 

 

The other major perk of Caño Hondo is their pools. They diverted the river into a series of swimming holes coming down the side of the hill. They were gorgeous and a lot of fun to walk around. The day wasn't as warm as we had expected though, and the water was quite cool so we didn't end up swimming. 

 

Anna considered booking us to stay at this lodge, but they said they were full. Which was a little funny because it seemed quite empty. Overall we were all happy with the place we stayed in town, and we got more of the local feel there. 

For the early afternoon section of our trip we took another boat ride with Halle, this time on a bigger motor boat. We went back  down the river and through the bay to caves in national park.

The first cave we stopped at was well known for its pictographs. The cave is full of them and they range in subject from ancient tribal gods to crosses representing the colonizing Spanish. There are also pictures that are thought to represent a slave being beaten.

 

 

The massive cave was cool in and of itself. There is evidence that native people took cover in the cave during storms. It was absolutely massive and a fair amount of natural lighting, so even Kathleen who tends to get claustrophobic felt comfortable in there. 

The second cave was right on the water and had the feel of the ideal cave for a pirate to hide treasure in. We docked on a beautiful beach. 

 

From the beach we took several cool boardwalks into the partially flooded cave. 

 

This cave was also gorgeous and had interesting ancient carvings. The cave is also known for being home to many bats, but we didn't see any of them. Their main roosting area is further back in the cave and is off limits to visitors. 

 

For the last part of our day we went on a fun hike on a trail that Halle and a Peace Corps volunteer helped to build a couple of years ago. It was absolutely stunning. The trail went through one of the filming locations for Jurassic Park. 

And in true Dominican fashion we went stopped and tried all of the different fruits along the trail as we went. 

 

Coffee

 

Bija, primarily used as a dye but also to add flavor to meat dishes.
Also apparently used in some skin care products. 

Star Fruit 

 

Chocolate. The white fruit around the chocolate is absolutely incredible and super sweet.
One of the best things we tasted on this trip. 

Halle had to work super hard to get us some chocolate fruit. We tried throwing things but were unsuccessful. But he was determined enough that he scaled the tree to bring us one down. And boy are we glad that he did. 

There were lots of other cool things on the hike as well, including trees that use thorns to store water and giant termite nests. The hike was a great end to an amazing day. By the time we got back to the hotel on our moto conchos we were very ready for a shower and bed, especially because we knew we'd have to get up early again the next day. 

 

Travel Update 15

After replacing our fuel tank, we left Tom and Joanne's house and headed to Atlanta before flying to the Dominican Republic. We mostly drove directly to Atlanta, but did take a slight detour on the Natchez Trace Parkway and had a day with really bad weather.

In Atlanta, we met up with Andreas's dad, Rüdiger, stepmother, Maggie, and half brother, Karl. We had a ton of fun playing around with Karl but we couldn't keep up with all his energy.

Andreas and Karl

Kathleen with Karl

Rüdiger showed us around town while Maggie was at work and Karl was in daycare. We took a walk along the Roswell boardwalk near the Chattahoochee Nature Center. After that we got a driving tour of quite a few parts of northern Atlanta.

The 14th was Andreas's birthday! We took an afternoon trip to Ponce City Market which had an open food hall with all sorts of options of food. It is connected to the Atlanta Beltline, a 22-mile multi-use loop, parts of which are still under construction, which encircles all of Atlanta on old railroad lines. 

Model of Ponce City Market

Doggy daycare at Ponce City Market

After a Caribbean dinner at the market, we met up with Kathleen's old classmate Allison and her boyfriend Christian at the Orpheus Brewing tasting room. We enjoyed a variety of their beer and got a surprise trivia night where we placed 2nd.

Trivia team name: #RVLife

On the 15th, we dropped off our kids at a dog sitter that we found through Rover, and got dropped off at the airport for our trip to the Dominican Republic.

Our kids enjoying a full sized apartment

Tornado Warning at Little River Canyon

On January 11th, we woke up to severe weather warnings in Florence, AL. We checked our phones to see when and where the warnings indicated it would be worst. It appeared to be coming west to east, so we decided to head out early and stay ahead of it.

We made it to Huntsville and the wind had seemed to fade significantly. We stopped for brunch at a dog park at the Indian Creek Greenway where Aiden could get energy out as well. Around 11am the wind picked up again, checking our phones we saw that strong winds were now indicated in Huntsville as well, but not much past it.

We continued with our plan to stay ahead of the bad weather. We made it into the mountains in the northeast of Alabama and thought we were safe. We decided to set our goal for Rome, GA, for the night, but no longer felt that we were in a rush.

It wasn't very windy anymore when we reached Fort Payne, AL. Just past the town, we came across Little River Canyon and decided to take the detour to see it. It was our first actual mountains in several months. The river and waterfall were gorgeous. We struck up a conversation with some white water kayakers who were pulling out for the day.

  

 

Leaving the second overlook, it started to rain again, and shortly after started to get windy. As soon as we reached the third overlook, we got a tornado warning on our phone telling us to take cover for the next 30 minutes. At this point, there wasn't much that we could do. We positioned the RV in to overlook parking area towards the center, so that no trees could fall on us and we turned on the radio, listening for weather coverage.

After a bit of heavy winds and rains, the wind started to let up and we decided we would head back to the Fort Payne Walmart and wait out the storm there. At least if something happened to us there we would have people around.

Driving back out of the scenic drive, we came across a downed tree on the road and felt lucky to not have been driving when the warning came to our phones. We were able to clear away just enough of the tree to squeeze by and continued on to Fort Payne.

All in all, we know this could have gone worse and feel lucky we avoided an actual tornado. Below is a map of where tornados actually hit that day. We do think that we did the right thing by trying to staying ahead of the storm front. We knew we were traveling faster than it and not being in a storm at all would have been the best outcome. We did get a bit complacent after reaching the mountains. We probably should have either kept moving or stopped in a population center. 

Image from Wikipedia