After a great time in Santiago it was time to move onto our final destination - Cabarete. We caught a taxi after breakfast to the bus station to catch the Caribe Tours bus to Sosua. When we got to Sosua we had to catch "public transportation" aka a shared taxi to Cabarete. We settled on the Kaoba hotel which I would recommend. It was not expensive, had a nice pool, good AC, was accross the street from the beach. The only negative was the musty smell in the rooms. Once we had checked into the hotel we were very hungry so we found a local food stall and I had arroz con pollo while Tal had rice and beans. After lunch, we did what we came to Cabarete for - beach! The beach was very nice ... read more

Next stop: Las Terrenas. It was a 3 gua gua adventure to get there: Las Galeras - Samana, Samana - El Limon, El limon - Las Terrenas. My girlfriend and I actually enjoy these little bus rides so it was quite fun/relaxing to see the countryside. Once we got to Las Terrenas we checked into Casa Robinson - a cute little place owned by a friendly Italian couple which is right across the beach. What we saw all across the Dominican Republic that made us laugh is those trucks that go around blaring propaganda about the candidates in the upcoming election. Does that actually work? Anyways, we found it funny. Our first day in LT we hung out on the beach and we really liked it. It was quite nice and the water was really warm. ... read more

Our trip to the DR actually started at 11:30 pm on the night of April 23rd, 2010. We decided to leave from Syracuse, NY, because the plane tickets from Syracuse were half the price on Jet Blue of the tickets from Montreal (where we live). We had a 6am flight from Syracuse so we left Montreal at 11:30 pm because we weren't sure how long it would take. Anyways, we got there at around 3:30 am (we took a while because we stopped quite long for a meal/snack). I drove all the way until 20 minutes before getting there but I had to give up because I was falling asleep. Uneventful connection at JFK and we were on the ground in the DR for noon. It was hot! I had read you couldn't really negotiate the ... read more

SCROLL DOWN FOR ENGLISH. Un gros salut depuis Riobamba! Apres Guayaquil, j'ai pris un bus pour Riobamba, situee a environ 5 heures de Guayaquil. La premiere journee ici je me suis juste promene un peu partout pour connaitre la ville. Je me suis promene d'un parc a un autre, lisant mon livre, profitant de la vie! La ville est situee a environ 2700 metres mais il y a beaucoup de montagnes plus grandes aux alentours donc il y a des vues extraordinaire! Hier, je suis alle avec une visite guidee au volcan Chimborazo, le plus haut sommet en Equateur a 6310 metres. Nous sommes alles au premier refuge, situe a 4800 metres. De la, nous avions grimpes jusqua 5000 metres (voir la photo) au second refuge. A cause de l'altitude, c'etait quand meme pas si facile! ... read more

SCROLL DOWN FOR ENGLISH. Salut tout le monde!!! Ca fait un petit bout! Je suis arrive ici a Guayaquil la semaine derniere (Mercredi) sur un avion en provenance de Quito. Je reste ici chez mon ami Andres et sa blonde Paula (avec qui j'ai reste a Bogota en Colombie) est aussi ici pour quelques semaines. Guayaquil est la plus grosse ville du pays. Je pense qu'il y a environ 4 million de personnes ici mais tuez moi pas svp si j'ai tort. La premiere journee que je suis arrivee nous sommes alles visiter le Malecon 2000. C'est une espece de promenade en bois qui longe une des rivieres dans la ville et il y a pleins de petits restaurants, magasins, un cinema IMAX, etc. Aussi nous avions visite le Parque Historico. C'est un espece de parc ... read more