Hey from USA (NC)

Define explore? Are you looking for cultural or geographical adventures, knowing what you are exactly looking for will refine the answers you get...

My must-see recommendations by location:

Puerto Plata city area
1) Gregorio Luperon Museum and Amber Museum (in Puerto Plata city)
2) Loma Isabel de Torres skylift trip -- but spend three hours walking the trails beyond the central area. Take jacket because can be chilly and go early. If you are in good shape, hike up the hill and come down by sky lift.
3) Malecon. A new amphitheater and park area near the Fortaleza San Felipe is being built, worth a visit -- maybe will be some show by the time you visit.
4) Brugal Rum factory. Get explanations on their better brands there.
5) Of course, there is Ocean World Park, a mega waterpark installation that is a must especially if you are traveling with the family.
6) If you are a golfer… Playa Dorada golf course… it is lovely because of all the large trees.

Sosua-Cabarete
7) Sosua Beach, Alicia Beach. Have lunch at Morua Mai restaurant. They also have good deserts.
8) Castillo Mundo King. Eclectic show of Haitian and galactic art.
9) Cabarete Beach (definitely go by day and night)

South of Puerto Plata
10) Saltos de Damajagua -- take the longest trip and walk all the way to the top and come down by the waterfalls.

West of Puerto Plata
11) Ruinas de La Isabela -- rent a car and head out to see the area Columbus chose to build the first settlement. Have lunch on the Isabela beach.
12) Cayo Arena (Paraiso). Overnight in Punta Rucia and take the excursion to Cayo Arena. Your hotel can help arrange this.

East of Puerto Plata
13) Laguna Gri Gri excursion through mangroves to visit beaches of Caleton, Cabo Frances Viejo and Diamante.
14) Stopover at Playa Grande.
15) Visit Laguna Dudu for zip lining, swimming.

oakmba said:

I'm new to the form. My wife just retired and we took our first trip to DR (Puerto Plata) in November. We only spent half a day off the resort but we are planning on coming back in February for ten days and want to explore the area then...any recommendations beyond the the standard stuff found on line?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Rent a car and drive from PP to Las Terrenas. This is a straight forward drive and you will get a sense of the countryside and check out Las Terrenas. You may find you like this area of the DR better. You take Rt 5 straight east. The only spot that is a little tricky when you come through Nagua. Stay on Rt 5 and head for Samana and not Santo Domingo. When you pass the tolls booths (after El Catey Airport) get in left lane and take new highway along coast. It is spectacular and will lead you right into Las Terrenas. When you get there go through town and head down the beach road at Playa Ballenas. I would suggest you stay at least one night at either the Hotel Aliesi or Hotel Colibri. If you need any other info let me know via PM.

Derfish said:

and view the scar on the mountain form behind, This is where an airplane is said to have hit the mountain in 1992 and the mountain still has not healed in all this time. .

Click to expand...

That statement will bring Marco's out of hiding. That's an old Dominican fairy tale.

ctrob said:

That statement will bring Marco's out of hiding. That's an old Dominican fairy tale.

Click to expand...

You really think he is hiding?
The guy has more socks than a Nike display @ The Sport's Authority!

Welcome to DR 1.

Derfish said:

So what did happen to the mountain if the people who have lived here all their lives think it got hit by an airplane and arewrong?

Click to expand...

It did get hit by an airplane, but the mark from the plane has grown over. That's the story I've heard anyway. Twenty years is a long time for the mind to wander. Even a collective mind.

http://dr1.com/forums/showthread.php/61705-Puerto-Plata-history-of-mountain-crash

Matilda

Welcome to Wonderland!

The spot on the mountain is probably from a land slide. Its not from the airplane.

welcome to DR1

Derfish said:

Thanks Matilda, but that thread had a lot of the same back and forth speculation. If someone were to find an article in an old Newspaper from 1992 showing where the plane hit I may change my mind, but unless and until I will believe the people who have lived here all their lives and are old enuff to have been grown in 1992. Did you notice that someone climbed "under the Gandola" and came upon airplane wreckage, and then decided that the wreckage is on the other side of the mountain? Or mayhaps I read it wrong.
Der Fish

Click to expand...

The thread contains several eye witness accounts from people (one even provided photographic evidence) that the wreckage is on the other side of the mountain or that the scar on the mountain occurred six months after the crash during heavy rains. One of the eye witnesses (Lambada) was an actual freelance journalist much more trustworthy than anything your likely to find in a Dominican newspaper. To illustrate my point about how the mind can wander, one of the eye witnesses to the wreckage even came to believe the folklore, after fifteen years, until he reviewed the facts. Those in the thread who speculated that the crash caused the scar admitted that they were only repeating hearsay evidence. However, we are all entitled to believe whatever we want.

Oh and by the way oakmba welcome to DR1.

i tried to look it up. the articles recalling the event do not mention the location but there is a shot of an article in el siglo following the crash:



you cannot see this very clearly but it read it says: el avion acidentado fue localizado 200 metros de la base (word i cannot read) teleferico en la encima de la montana.
still, the drawing shows plane approach the mountain from the south.

in reference to the older thread, there is plenty of info on heavy rainfall on the 17th of may 1993 that has taken lives of many on the NC and in cibao area and provoked numerous land slides.

so maybe it was both? the area was damaged in the crash and nature has finished it off?

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19921115-0

Date: Sunday 15 November 1992
Time: ca 18:45
Type: Ilyushin 18D
Operator: Aerocaribbean
Registration: CU-T1270
C/n / msn: 187010301
First flight: 1967
Crew: Fatalities: 6 / Occupants: 6
Passengers: Fatalities: 28 / Occupants: 28
Total: Fatalities: 34 / Occupants: 34
Airplane damage: Damaged beyond repair
Location: 14 km (8.8 mls) W of Puerto Plata-La Union International Airport (POP) ( Dominican Republic)
Phase: Approach (APR)
Nature: Int'l Non Scheduled Passenger
Departure airport: Santo Domingo-Las Am?ricas International Airport (SDQ/MDSD), Dominican Republic
Destination airport: Puerto Plata-La Union International Airport (POP/MDPP), Dominican Republic
Narrative:
The Il-18 operated on a flight from Santo Domingo (SDQ) to Havana with an intermediate stop at Puerto Plata. On approach the airliner flew into the 2500-ft high Pico Isabel de Torres.
The crew carried out a VOR approach to runway 26 at Puerto Plata Airport before breaking off and making a circling visual approach to runway 08. Last contact with the flight was when the pilot reported on the base leg of the approach at 9nm (16,7 km). The aircraft apparently hit the hill shortly after turning onto final approach. The maximum distance for a circling approach is said to have been 4nm.

Derfish said:

It also had eyewitness accounts that it was the same crash that caused it, so as in religion one has to choose what they want to believe, and If we were to find something in a local paper how would we know it was not written by that same freelance journalist?

Click to expand...

There was one such post, but the poster corrected himself in the next post.

wuarhat said:

The thread contains several eye witness accounts from people (one even provided photographic evidence) that the wreckage is on the other side of the mountain or that the scar on the mountain occurred six months after the crash during heavy rains. One of the eye witnesses (Lambada) was an actual freelance journalist much more trustworthy than anything your likely to find in a Dominican newspaper. To illustrate my point about how the mind can wander, one of the eye witnesses to the wreckage even came to believe the folklore, after fifteen years, until he reviewed the facts. Those in the thread who speculated that the crash caused the scar admitted that they were only repeating hearsay evidence. However, we are all entitled to believe whatever we want.

Oh and by the way oakmba welcome to DR1.

Click to expand...

Dominicans won't let a little thing like the truth get in the way of a story they like.