We just finished our first real week in the Dominican Republic. I can’t really count the first 4 days that we spent in Punta Cana because we didn’t leave the all inclusive resort. In Las Terrenas we ended up in a really nice Airbnb in condo/hotel with a large pool right across the street from the beach. We probably could have found cheaper accommodation but we really wanted the beach location. The DR has beautiful beaches and they seem to be so accessible and empty in Las Terrenas. There was a reef break offshore so we were able to snorkel in calm waters. We are still in rainy season at the end of October so the short downpours every day made the waters a bit cloudy so the snorkeling wasn’t the best. It was still nice to relax in 86 degree water. Not much to complain about.
We really don’t like to rent cars and were hoping for a nice relaxing week without much sightseeing. There were some cool caves and waterfalls nearby but we didn’t really have any motivation to check them out so we decided to not rent the car or scooter. We felt like we were the only ones who made that choice. Every day we walked on the narrow beach road to get to the grocery store or restaurants and we had to avoid the cars, motorcycles and 4X4’s that everyone else was driving. At low tide we could walk on the beach but then we had to walk around all the fishing boats. In retrospect, a scooter rental might have been a good idea, but we actually got used to walking in this town and it was just fine walking everywhere in sand.
I’m not sure we ever really figured out the town of Las Terrenas. The DR has a Mexican feel to it but the towns don’t seem to have a “zocalo” or town center like Mexican towns. It seems like a religious country but we haven’t seen many churches yet. We never found a farmer’s market that seem to be in every small beach town in the whole world. We are on shoulder season so there didn’t see too many other tourists. Restaurants and hotels looked less than 25 percent full. I feel like we didn’t really get the tourist experience, so it is tough to write a tourist blogpost. But maybe that it just what Las Terrenas is. I can show you pictures of beaches…. which is most of what we saw.
We did enjoy eating a lot of meals in this town. We had a lot of seafood and a lot of the fish were caught locally. We saw the fishing boats delivering the fish to the beach restaurants. There is also some European expat communities here including a lot of Italians. We ate a lot of pizza made by Italians. We also went to a beachfront French restaurant which was packed with old French guys playing Petanque- the French version of bocce. Very unexpected…..
So we are still trying to figure out this town and this country. A lot of the DR feels like Mexico or Costa Rica. There is a lot of beauty… but also a lot of challenges. The best part so far is the 80 degree fall weather, the deserted beaches, and reasonable prices. We enjoyed our time here and loved to just chill. We are starting to see why so many people have fallen in love with this island. We will try to learn some more next week when we move on to another small beach town- Cabarete
still haven’t found Julio Rodriguez…. he may be in Seattle :>(
