El Limon Falls Excursion

Whether you are visiting the DR on a vacation or you are on an extended Staycation it’s nice to head out on excursions! You can find almost anything in the DR to entertain the family. Some of the most popular are Whale Watching Excursions, Jeep Safari Excursions, City Tours, big game fishing, catamarans, Horseback riding into the mountains or on a beach, even Zip lining.

We recently took a horseback riding excursion to the La Limon Waterfalls. We had our own transportation to get us to the starting point for the excursion, but if you are staying in Las Terrenas most of the tours include travel from Las Terrenas to the trail head.

Your Horse and Tour Guide

Once at the trail head you are given a helmet if you like and then helped on to your horse. The saddles are well padded, which is nice for those of us that aren’t too used to riding. Also, in most cases you will be given your own personal guide that will steady and guide your horse as needed or will just act as your personal tour guide if you like. If you go during mango season they will generally hunt down some mangos for you.

These are all done on a volunteer basis and are not paid by the tour operator. They make all their money off the tips they are given. Some people tip as high as 1000 pesos but the majority tips between 200 and 500 pesos. Your guide will be with you for the whole trip and pretty much takes out his whole day in the hope to make a little money so it is nice to be generous here.

The horses are gentle and easy to ride. If the guide feels you are not secure with the horse he will keep it slow and steady, if you seem a little more secure he’s likely to put the horse into a trot or run a couple times to give you a little more of a ride.

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Residencia Del Paseo Entrance

For our most recent visit to Las Terrenas my wife and I decided to check out La Residencia Del Paseo, this is a three story hotel in the heart of Las Terrenas. There are studios for 1-2 people and duplexes for 2-4 people. The rooms have hot water, 24 hour power and free WiFi internet.

Location

For us La Residencia Del Paseo was in the ideal location. In the morning I liked to walk over to the Boulangerie Francaise to pick up breakfast, there is also a nice colmado in Plaza Taina to pick up ice, orange juice and other items for breakfast. This colmodo is pretty well stocked and will have most of the small items you’ll need including beer, rum, vodka, fruit and snacks as well as larger cooking supplies .

Right next door to the Hotel is a small outdoor mall (a Centro Comercial) called El Paseo de la Constanera. I will be writing quite a bit more on this mall in a future post, but for the sake of this article it’s good to know you will find clothes, gift stores, a store with things like sun screen and health items etc. Pretty much anything you might need will is within a hundred yards of La Residencia Del Paseo. There are also two ATM where you can withdrawal money, the money will be dispensed in Pesos. For this reason I don’t recommend bringing a lot of cash or travelers checks with you. It is easier to take your money out as you need it instead of carrying a lot with you.
While the hotel is not directly on the beach (very few are in Las Terrenas) it is a very short walk away. You pretty much just cross this mall and then a street and you are at the beach. This is also one of the closest hotels to many of the restaurants and beach bars (nice areas next to the beach to have a drink). (more…)

Path Tropical Storm Emily

Emily is expected to hit the island sometime today. If you are one of the people visiting the island you might want to be thinking about some indoor activities for the day. There are many pretty good shopping centers in the DR especially in the capital (Santo Domingo) and Santiago. Also many of the larger tourist areas have some pretty good sopping areas.

The storm is expected to ht the DR with 50 mph winds and up to 10 inches of rain in some areas. The south is usually the hardest hit, but forecast say that the winds could reach up to 100 mph as the storm reaches some of the mountains in the Dominican Republic.

As I write this post, I’m looking out at a partially cloudy sky and it is warming up to be a nice day. That is one of the interesting parts about living on an island. The weather changes rapidly and within a very short time I could see a dramatic change in the weather, but at this point that remains to be seen.

Best advise at this time. Expect a storm to hit so remain close to shelter, but if it hasn’t hit yet go find something interesting to do. Once the winds start picking up and you see the dark clouds coming it’s time to start checking out some indoor activities! (more…)