Salto

One of the first things we did here was spend a day in Jarabacoa. Stacy and I were pretty excited! We stopped at Campus Club first, which was pretty boring. I guess it’s some kind of a resort. We just hung out by the pool for a while and had lunch. I wasn’t feeling well that morning, so I was pretty quiet. I had started being able to feel the low thyroid that had shown up in my labs when I was home. Anyway I felt better after lunch and then we went on to Jarabacoa. We went to the park first because Stacy and I wanted to walk from the park to Medina so the rest of the group could get a feel for Jarabacoa. We went to my house first—we got there earlier than I’d thought we would so they were in the middle of lunch. But Doña got out some juice and I helped distribute it to people sitting around the house and porch. I gave a little tour of the house too. José disappeared onto the computer and Smil was kind of quiet—it seemed like they were a little baffled at having so many people in the house. We talked for a little while and then walked to Stacy’s house—which was basically the same thing with her family. I’d told Ari we’d be stopping by my house but he didn’t make it in time, so when we left for Salto de Jimenoa I texted him that he could meet us there if he wanted. Somehow George magically figured out that Stacy was in town and called her. So she told him he could meet us at Salto as well. Ari was already there when we got there,and it was really nice to see him. The other students were taking pictures when we started discussing what to do—I insisted that we could go swimming in the ‘restricted’ area and jump off the high part, but I guess they didn’t want to break rules with so many people around. So we decided to climb up to the second waterfall.

We started out with all of us, but people started to turn back as it got really tough. We found out later we’d missed a turn, a turn that if you take it, makes the hike

short and easy. But the trail soon disappeared, and we found ourselves scrambling up an incline steeper than the one on Mogote.

Not long after this, we started to get worried about the time.

But after we’d been sitting for a quite a while, I decided as long as we were sitting there discussing it,

I could go on ahead to see what it was like and then come back. But then people followed anyway. We tore our way through the brush until we reached a clearing where there was some kind of large apparatus, presumably part of the hydroelectric plant. We wondered around a bit, but then Ari found someone to ask about where we were.

The guy instructed us up to the road, and we ended up going all the way to the actual entrance to the second waterfall—an ecotourism project of the local community.

So we went all the way back down from there to the second waterfall, and man was it worth it! It’s absolutely quiet and secluded and gorgeous.

The falls gushed down into a deep crystal blue pool, and then went bubbling through

smaller pools off down the slope. The bare rocks and cliffs were various shades

of rose pink, tan, and a lonely gray color. We went swimming and wandered around a bit. We started back up down the trail then to

look for where the unofficial trail down to the first waterfall splits off

when George and a friend of his showed up! They walked around with us a bit but we really had to leave. George looked pretty upset when Stacy told him she wasn’t staying in town

that night. The two boys gave Ari tips on how to find the trail back down,

and it was actually really short and easy, and even bipassed the part where you feel like you’re scaling a wall. We’d gotten a hold of Lily earlier and she gave us some extra time, but even then we still got back late. I felt bad that the rest of the group was waiting for us, but honestly the climb was totally worth it.