Today we went to El Limón, the next town over to hike to the waterfall (I went up on horseback before). A 9 year old boy called Carlos asked did we want him to be our guide, and we couldn´t resist. It seemed like destiny for he was wearing a wonderful t-shirt (most people buy their clothes from second-hand stores with donations from America).
The guagua to El Limón with Jess, Leire and Andrea
My main man Carlos
View from the hike
Carlos was wearing wellies, and he bounded over rocks and swung off branches on the way to the waterfall. When we got up to the top, he jumped in the water and with all the other local boys started doing tricks. Some completely insane teenagers climb up, scale horizontally the face of the waterfall and leap off. Terrifying.
Carlos´s cousin
The kids from Las Terrenas often don´t know how to swim and rarely go to the beach, even though they live in a beach town, but the kids here work at the waterfall so their relationship with it is totally different. They go to school Monday-Friday and on weekends or public holidays they take tourists up on horseback or walking. Besides the usual independence a Dominican kid displays, these kids are country boys and jump off waterfalls, scramble up and down rocks and swim like fish. All the guides wore wellies, and a lot of them swam in them. Madness.
After we went to el arroyo, a natural pool with a bar and thumping music. No firearms or knives allowed, as the below sign helpfully informs us.
We swam in the fresh, cold water and had a couple of Presidente beers before getting the guagua back. Only the foreigners swim in bikinis. For some reason, the Dominicans all swim fully dressed. But they have a good time doing it.
I leave you with a girl and her dog, waiting for a lift at the side of the road.
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