After getting a ride from a pastor from Cabarete to Sosua, where I needed to catch the bus to La Vega, I landed in La Vega at about 9:30 pm and had missed all buses going to Jarabacoa until the next morning at 8:30 am. Since I had a reservation in Jarabacoa which I´d already postponed one night, and being bombarded with guys hustling rides, I negotiated a fair price up the canyon with a guy who was nice (even though he tried to charge me double of what I ended up paying him), but he was not blessed with a full deck of cards.
After picking up his entire family to ride along, we had no idea where the hotel was located other than the vague address I pulled out of an old guide book. None of us knowing the town, he had to stop at least twelve times (no exaggeration) to ask for directions and still managed to drop me at the wrong hotel, even after picking up a very inebriated local just to guide us directly to the hotel. Turns out, there are two Las Brisas del Yacque hotels in town, and no one seems to know about the one I stayed at even though it's been operating the longest. No wonder the directions people were giving were not jiving with the guide book. Anyway, after being dropped at Las Brisas no. 2, walking with all my bags unsuccessfully and returning to Las Brisas no. 1, the concierge then had to call another taxi for me to drop me three blocks away at the Las Brisas del Yacque (no. 1) where my reservation was and a room less than half the price of LB no 1.
Next day I decided to take a horseback guide up to the waterfalls from a ranch just outside of town. The falls were beautiful, and my two 11-year old guides were great, except that they absolutely refused to go at a pace where my bootie was not being hammered against the not-so-great saddle without a horn to hold on to. Oh yeah, and the little guy wanted to ride behind me on my horse, Chocolate, since it was really his horse. OK fine, I thought, until about ten minutes into the ride I could tell that I was going to have a major bruise on my tailbone for days and I was correct. We galloped and trotted our way to two beautiful waterfalls, but I could go the rest of my life without riding another horse....or at least until I have an appropriate saddle and a slower horse.
The serendipitous portion of the waterfall tour, was that at the entrance to one of the falls, right before you have to cross a series of suspension bridges (I loved them), I spoke to four other tourists while Joselito and William were tying up the horses.
The group was in their late 50's I´d say, and the two men told me about a bed and breakfast that their friend, John, runs in the Colonial Zone of Santo Domingo. When I expressed interest, they called him on the spot and I reserved a room for three nights. Great - since I would be there the next day and didn't have anything else confirmed. The gentlemen then stopped by each morning to visit and check up on me to ensure that I was enjoying my stay, and I became very fond of them both - Stanley and Terry, who were Jewish and loved to tease me about Utah and the Mormon religion. All in good fun of course.
They told me a funny story about their visit to Jarabacoa: apparently, the two women that I met at the falls with them were not their wives. They had met these two women the day before in Santo Domingo and invited them for a day trip up to the falls, however on the scenic way back to SD, they had to be pushed out of the mud twice, and were almost stranded in the mountains by a rock slide covering the road for hours. When they told me this story, they said that they were becoming worried because it was late, and they didn't know how to explain to their wives how they were forced to spend the night in Constanza with two strange women they'd just met!
In the end, I enjoyed my visit to Jarabacoa, and the feel of the refreshing cool mountain air again.
After getting a ride from a pastor from Cabarete to Sosua, where I needed to catch the bus to La Vega, I landed in La Vega at about 9:30 pm and had missed all buses going to Jarabacoa until the next morning at 8:30 am. Since I had a reservation in Jarabacoa which I´d already postponed one night, and being bombarded with guys hustling rides, I negotiated a fair price up the canyon with a guy who was nice (even though he tried to charge me double of what I ended up paying him), but he was not blessed with a full deck of cards.
After picking up his entire family to ride along, we had no idea where the hotel was located other than the vague address I pulled out of an old guide book. None of us knowing the town, he had to stop at least twelve times (no exaggeration) to ask for directions and still managed to drop me at the wrong hotel, even after picking up a very inebriated local just to guide us directly to the hotel. Turns out, there are two Las Brisas del Yacque hotels in town, and no one seems to know about the one I stayed at even though it's been operating the longest. No wonder the directions people were giving were not jiving with the guide book. Anyway, after being dropped at Las Brisas no. 2, walking with all my bags unsuccessfully and returning to Las Brisas no. 1, the concierge then had to call another taxi for me to drop me three blocks away at the Las Brisas del Yacque (no. 1) where my reservation was and a room less than half the price of LB no 1.
Next day I decided to take a horseback guide up to the waterfalls from a ranch just outside of town. The falls were beautiful, and my two 11-year old guides were great, except that they absolutely refused to go at a pace where my bootie was not being hammered against the not-so-great saddle without a horn to hold on to. Oh yeah, and the little guy wanted to ride behind me on my horse, Chocolate, since it was really his horse. OK fine, I thought, until about ten minutes into the ride I could tell that I was going to have a major bruise on my tailbone for days and I was correct. We galloped and trotted our way to two beautiful waterfalls, but I could go the rest of my life without riding another horse....or at least until I have an appropriate saddle and a slower horse.
The serendipitous portion of the waterfall tour, was that at the entrance to one of the falls, right before you have to cross a series of suspension bridges (I loved them), I spoke to four other tourists while Joselito and William were tying up the horses. 
The group was in their late 50's I´d say, and the two men told me about a bed and breakfast that their friend, John, runs in the Colonial Zone of Santo Domingo. When I expressed interest, they called him on the spot and I reserved a room for three nights. Great - since I would be there the next day and didn't have anything else confirmed. The gentlemen then stopped by each morning to visit and check up on me to ensure that I was enjoying my stay, and I became very fond of them both - Stanley and Terry, who were Jewish and loved to tease me about Utah and the Mormon religion. All in good fun of course.
They told me a funny story about their visit to Jarabacoa: apparently, the two women that I met at the falls with them were not their wives. They had met these two women the day before in Santo Domingo and invited them for a day trip up to the falls, however on the scenic way back to SD, they had to be pushed out of the mud twice, and were almost stranded in the mountains by a rock slide covering the road for hours. When they told me this story, they said that they were becoming worried because it was late, and they didn't know how to explain to their wives how they were forced to spend the night in Constanza with two strange women they'd just met!
In the end, I enjoyed my visit to Jarabacoa, and the feel of the refreshing cool mountain air again.
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