Entrance of Altamira

Planning of visiting Altamira soon? Likely you are reading this site to find out about your new destination! Quite a few people have been visiting here so I thought I’d give you an idea on what you are going to find. There is a Kingdom Hall, a bank, and several small supermarkets so you are likely to find what you need to make your stay comfortable. There are no Motels or Hotels here but there are people that occasionally rent out places for short term visitors.

For this post I will give you a quick overview of Altamira, but as I write more pages I will link off of this page to other sections like the businesses you will find here, transportation etc.

Altamira de Puerto Plata

First let’s be sure you have the right location. There are several Altamiras in the Dominican Republic. I will be writing today about the one in the Puerto Plata province. It is located on the main highway about halfway between Puerto Plata and Santiago. That makes it about 20 minutes from the Assembly hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Via Gonzales .

ATMs and Banks

There is one bank and two ATMs in Altamira. The first ATM is at the bank right in the middle of town and the other is at the gas station at the El Jamo side of town (closest to Santiago). The one at the gas station is a Banco de Reservas ATM. The ATM at the bank will only let you take out a maximum of 3 mil (aprox. $65) per withdraw if you are using a foreign atm card.

The People of Altamira

As in most smaller towns in the Dominican republic, the people in Altamira are friendly and hospitable. You can pretty much stick up a conversation with anyone on the street. During the day it is safe to walk around the street of the community although as with most of the Dominican Republic it is a good idea to be indoors after dark.

While there is a trash problem pretty much throughout the country, Altamira is one of the cleanest towns that I have visited. Most of the people here take pride in keeping the town clean so there is far less trash on the streets than I’ve found in the majority of the towns I have visited.

Things to do

There are not a lot of activities in Altamira, however it is located very near to quite a few places of interest. It is easy to get around using the local public transportation. There are two bus stops in Altamira for Javilla Tours. As I have time and get pictures I’ll keep adding to this section with links to new posts with more detailed descriptions and pictures.

• Santiago- This is one of the largest cities of the DR and has just about anything you may want. It is located about 20 minutes south of Altamira and is easy to get to by GuaGua. From Altamira the cost to go to Santiago is 65 pesos using the Guagua company Javilla Tours.
• Puerto Plata – Located about 20 minutes North of Altamira you will find the coast and once again most things that you might want. Both Santiago and Puerto PLata cater to Foreigners and have a very good selection of stores and businesses.
• Chocal Chocolate Artesanal – Just north of Altamira in Palmar Grande is a local chocolate factory. They use the local Dominican grown chocolate which is very good. They also sell a locally made wine. The wine is very unique and uses locally grown fruit like mango, carambolla, cacao (chocolate),,chinola, banana and others. It is a little more like a home made wine than what you would find in the Napa valley but is pretty good.
• 27 Waterfalls (27 Charcos) – Is also just a little ways north of Altamira and is a pretty cool adventure. You take a 20 minute of so hike up to up to 27 different water falls where you can jump off into pools, there are also rock water slides for those that do not want to jump. There are different prices depending on whether you are a local or have a cedula or if you are a visitor. the prices range from 280pesos to 500 peso depending on if you have a cedual and how many of the falls you want to check out.

24 hour power in Altamira

One of the first questions people often ask (at least if they know the situation with the electricity here) is how good is the power. Right now we get power for about 1/3 of the day. However that is soon to change. As I write they are working on extending 24 hour power to this area. They have already installed the large high voltage poles along the highway and are in the middle of stringing the cable. Rumor has it that we will have 24 hour power by the end of June or July of this year 2015. It might still be good to have a inverter and battery system for the frequent blackouts, but that is at least much better than daily power outages.

The voltage will no doubt continue to fluctuate so a whole house regulator or at least a small regulator to protect your electronic equipment is still a good idea. The voltage here can move up and down as much as 50 volts or even more depending on where you live, how far you are from the street transformer and the distribution cables in your area. For the most part it is a little better in town and quickly gets worse as you reach the outskirts of Altamira.

If you plan to come by and visit us someday, bookmark this page. I will be linking to more information on Altamira in the coming weeks.