Your friend is at least an eight hour drive away! From Bavaro it is a 3-4 hour drive to Santo Domingo (depending on who is doing the driving), and then it is another 3-4 hour drive to get to Puerto Plata, and another about half hour from Puerto Plata to Cabarete.
It will take you an entire day of traveling to see your friend in the north coast.
Your only chance is to befriend a pilot who commutes between Punta Cana (Bavaro) and Puerto Plata to catch a ride. It's but an hour flight.
By bus it is about US$10 trip, quite a bargain considering you will be traveling almost 500 kilometers. Once you get to Santo Domingo you need to catch a cab -- RD$60 to commute from one bus station to the other. You also should take the Caribe Tours bus to Puerto Plata because it puts you in Sosua, which is about 20 minutes from Cabarete.