After our day trip to Playa Rincon, I was a bit afraid that the other beaches in Las Galeras would be slightly disappointing. Yet, Playa Fronton proved me wrong. Playa Fronton and Playa Rincon are like two sides of paradise. While the beauty of Rincon is characterized by the uninterrupted sections of white sand and clear blue waters, I found Fronton to be impressive in an entirely different way. There was something untamed about the beach that was awe-inspiring and majestic.

Playa Fronton is even less well-known than Playa Rincon and it is quite difficult to get to. Thus, not many tourists actually make the trip.  Dan and I had initially contemplated walking from our hostel to the beach, but had heard too many stories about robberies along the way. Even the Lonely Planet author stressed the difficulty of finding the right path among the many poorly marked trails.

Instead of walking, we decided to take a boat. The main beach in town is the launching pad from which people can explore other beaches in the area by water taxi.

Waiting for a boat to take us to Playa Fronton acquainted us with the term “island time.” We arrived at the launching area around 10am, but our guides were hoping to find more passengers to make the trip profitable. After waiting around for a while, the driver of our boat informed us that a group of tourists from the nearby resort would be joining us “very soon” and to “just wait by the water for a few minutes.”

We waited. Yet, a few minutes turned into half an hour and then expanded to an hour. After an hour, Dan and I soon began to wonder if there were any tourists at all, but every ten minutes or so the boat boys would come over to inform us that it would only be another “five minutes.” Before our crew was finally together, two full hours had passed.

The journey was worth every minute of the wait and taking a water taxi proved to be a good, though terrifying choice. The waves out at sea were enormous and our little rickety wooden boat kept being tossed around. I felt partly like I was riding on a roller coaster and partly like I was flying, since we would catch a few feet of air with every wave.

As we distanced ourselves from Las Galeras, the beachfront scenery began to change. White sand gave way to dramatic rocks, and tall cliffs rose majestically out of the water. I would have liked to take pictures from the boat, but I was holding on to my seat so tightly that the thought didn’t even cross my mind.

The scenery surrounding the beach was impressive to say the least, but even the pictures I was able to take on shore do not capture the grandeur of the cliff faces.

When we arrived on shore, we swam a bit, but mostly took in the scenery and watched the fishermen out at sea. After about an hour of sitting in the shade of a palm tree, we were in for quite a treat. Our boat drivers had gotten tired of just sitting on the beach and decided it would be a perfect time to collect coconuts. I have never seen someone climb a tree with such agility. Let alone a tree without branches.

Our guide simply walked up the tree until he reached the fronds at the top. I was dumbfounded.

As our boat guide dropped coconut after coconut on the ground, his friend split them open for us. The meat of the coconut was so fresh that it fell off the shell and the milk was cool and refreshing.

When we arrived back in Las Galeras from Playa Fronton, we decided to treat ourselves to smoothies and an appetizer at El Cabitos.

El Cabitos is a restaurant overlooking the ocean and, though the menu was a bit spendy for our budget, we decided to take the advice of some travelers we met at our hostel and go for a late afternoon snack. The other travelers had gone earlier in the week and were able to spot whales.

Unfortunately, Dan and I had no such luck, but we did see an adorable sea turtle swimming in the water below us!

The post Playa Fronton appeared first on Erika's Travels .

From Santo Domingo, we hopped on a large coach bus and headed across the Dominican Republic to the very tip of the Samana Peninsula–an area that is home to some of the Dominican Republic’s best beaches.

The Samana Peninsula is heavily reliant on tourism from January through mid-March, when the giant humpback whales migrate through the Samana Bay in search of warm waters.

Unfortunately, we arrived in Samana at the tail end of the whale-watching season and the chances that we would actually see whales were dwindling. So, instead of stopping in the town of Samana to participate in an excursion and consequently emptying our wallets for something that was not guaranteed, we decided to jump on a gua-gua (one of the small local busses that connect towns in the Dominican Republic) and head directly to Las Galeras.

Las Galeras is literally at the end of the road. The entire town runs along one street that is lined in shops selling brightly colored Dominican and Haitian artwork. The sleepy feel was somewhat reminiscent of Culebra, though perhaps even more evident.

As soon as Dan and I arrived, we were quickly overcome by the desire to spend a few days doing nothing, and our grand plans to explore the peninsula slowly erased themselves from our itinerary. We would spend the next two days around Las Galeras, hiking to different beaches and soaking up a bit too much sun.

Our lovely hostel in Las Galeras was three kilometers from town along a peaceful, palm-lined road. Multiple times a day, we would make the trek into town–walking through farmland and along the beach. The hike afforded us beautiful views of the bay and it was often possible to see bits of local life along the way. We saw fishermen casting their nets in the sea, young children riding horses along the waterfront and farmers cultivating plantains and bananas.

Despite the large ex-pat population in Las Galeras and the resort we had to pass through on our way to town, we felt constantly surrounded by the day-to-day local life of the Dominicans.

It was wonderful.

On our first day in Las Galeras, we headed off to Playa Rincon Beach–a beach that, on one list, made it to the top ten most beautiful beaches in the world. It is very hard to get to Playa Rincon, even from Las Galeras. In order to access the beach, Dan and I took a little boat taxi across the bay.

Playa Rincon Beach itself is absolutely incredible. Its white sands extend for an uninterrupted three miles and the beach is lined with palm trees that bend in toward the water. The water is of the brightest turquoise I have ever seen and it was so clear that it looked like a swimming pool.We were able to find a place to sit where there was nobody else in sight and the only sounds were the waves gently lapping against the shore.

It was pure bliss.

The post Playa Rincon in the Samana Peninsula appeared first on Erika's Travels .

On the 13th, I left Puerto Rico for the Dominican Republic and, with that, left behind any semblance of American Culture. In the Dominican Republic, I quickly realized that, though two territories may be close in proximity, they can be drastically different. Our flight from San Juan to Santo Domingo lasted only one hour, but landing on Dominican territory reinforced the fact that I was no longer in my home country.

Our introduction to the Dominican Republic was hectic and a bit terrifying–nothing like the rest of our stay in the country would prove to be.

We arrived at the airport in the afternoon and decided to go directly to our hostel in the old city so that we could put down our bags and explore Santo Domingo on foot. Finding transport to the hostel, however, was one of the biggest adventures of our trip. When I heard that taxis wanted $40 to bring tourists to the city center from the airport, I was shocked. Forty dollars is a lot for a taxi ride in the United States, let alone in the Dominican Republic. I knew this had to be a way of squeezing money out of tourists, so I tried bargaining. However, the taxistas would not budge on the price.

Finally, frustrated, I asked a group of Americans if they knew anything about the price of cab rides. They confirmed the outrageous price, but stated that they had lived in Santo Domingo for decades and would give us a ride to our hostel. Dan and I accepted the offer without hesitation, clueless of the chaos that would subsequently ensue.

As we walked with our new friends out of the airport, a swarm of taxistas rushed towards us. They began dropping the price frantically–from $40 to $35 and soon down to $25. I could see that they were furious. There were very few tourists at the airport and the taxi drivers were mad that their business had just been stolen by American expats. I felt bad not giving business to local drivers, but how could I refuse a free ride?

I understood the frustration on the part of the cab drivers but I was still not expecting the situation that followed. With every step that I took, the voices of the angry taxistas rose higher and higher. Soon, they were screaming in Spanish at the family that had courteously offered to drive us and, within minutes, they had called the police.

A bit of an exaggeration? I certainly thought so.

Yet, the drivers were persistent, saying that they had been conspired against. Luckily the police were on our side. Certainly, there are more pressing issues in the Dominican Republic than a few tourists who are offered rides by Dominican residents.

Despite the slightly unsettling nature of our arrival in Santo Domingo, the rest of our stay in the city was fantastic. After we checked into our hostel, Dan and I spent the rest of the day meandering around  the city’s the Zona Colonial.

Santo Domingo is a city where the old and the new live side by side. In the Colonial Zone, crumbling churches sit beside upscale, modern eateries. It is a city of impressive cultural and historic wealth. The oldest inhabited city in the New World, modern Santo Domingo contains many relics of its dynamic past. The first architectural gem we encountered was the Catedral Primada de las Americas. As its name indicates, it is the oldest church in the new world. The cathedral also forms a centerpiece of the colonial city.

From the church, we walked along the riverfront fort and explored the other historical structures of the old city, including countless colonial churches and crumbling monasteries. The Zona Colonial of Santo Domingo was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site and, in many ways it reminded me of Antigua, Guatemala due to the ancient cultural relics that are scattered around it. Two of the most impressive structures were the Monasterio de San Francisco (first monastery in the New World) and the Hospital de San Nicolas de Bari (the oldest hospital in the New World).

In addition, we saw the oldest paved street in the New World, Calle las Damas. The street was given its name back in the 1500s for the ladies who would stroll around it during their spare time.

The Zona Colonial of Santo Domingo was quite impressive and I really wish we had a bit more time to enjoy it. Nonetheless, by meandering around, we got a good idea of the layout of the area and saw some of its most important sites. Our first day in the Dominican Republic proved to be a success despite our slightly uneasy introduction to the country!

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