We spent three glorious days this past weekend at Bahia de las Aguilas (Bay of the Eagles) in the arid southwest region of the island very near the Haitian border (it seems like I have also spent about three days trying to get the photos on this blog in the right order which is a task I have now given up on!). 4x4's are required to get in the camping area and the hill climbing definitely demands all your rig can give, but this assumes that you can even find your way there in the first place. Dominican sign-making is something that leaves me and the rest of the newbies a bit non-plussed, so thank gawd we had knowledgable drivers to get us there safely. The entire area of Bahia de las Aguilas has been now sold twice, initially to a French consortium whose deal fell through and recently to some other group pushing for development. It is easy to say that any development of the area would be an irreversable travesty (and I am sure that any eco-friendly promises would quickly be forgotten), but after seeing the abject poverty in the towns nearby it does make you wonder how the people might benefit from such a move. The first thing we noticed upon arrival is that the wind drums up impressive force as the heat of the day goes up, but with the first hints of evening, the wind softens quickly. Indeed, we found that the evenings and nights are perfectly tranquilo. Tranquilo is a fitting Spanish word for the experience of being in a place like Bahia de las Aguilas as it means calm, tranquil, or "chill" as my friend George translates it. You can see from the photos that the sunsets are glorious and even inspired my friend David to dust off his sense of awe. We discovered what is easily the best snorkeling so far in DR and the water felt perfect just about any time of day. The intrepid Paul Keene even began each day with a "reverse evolutionary crawl" from tent to water at about 7:30 a.m. and never once shivered from the temperature.
Getting home was much harder than getting there as we ran into a massive traffic jam that was created by some angsty men in a cliffside town (see 2nd and 3rd photos in the top post above) whose name we never did get; ostensibly, they moved all sorts of detrititus (flaming and non) onto the road to get attention from the press about their quality of life -- specifically and, for me, ironically because they have not had running water in 8 years. This sad fact that we learned a few days later is ironic because I am currently reading a nonfiction book Water by Marq de Villiers which discusses many spots around the world which are on the precipice of violence because of water shortages; the DR wasn't mentioned in the book, but I'm sure it would be apt for the context. My buddy Ian and I along with a few other hearty drivers who really needed to get moving learned that angry Dominican mobs don't necessary take kindly to people moving their well-placed detritus (especially gringos), so we backed off and just waited for the proper authorities to arrive to take care of things. It really made me wonder what happened 8 years ago that would have changed their water situation so dramatically and how very poor people who live in the middle of Dominican nowhere have any sort of contact with the government to appeal for improvements. The situation finally ended after a very toasty hour of trying to find shade and we got on our way, but with end-of-weekend traffic the total drive back was about 8 hours --that's a lot for island driving!
This whole week since coming back I have been reminding myself of the Bahia de las Aguilas sunset+deep breathing=tranquilo formula which helps solidify my dedication to go back again next year.
Palabra.
