Dominican Tarzan y Los 3 Ojos

Sunday was our trip to Los 3 Ojos (The 3 Eyes).  We were supposed to go to Faro Colon, but we ran out of time.  Which was alright in the end, since we were very exhausted and hungry following our adventure.

We met at the MC (Me, Ozumy, Zak, Yeimy and Paula) and called a taxi.  We made our way out to the park, it is on the outskirts of the city on the road that leads to the airport.  The driver didn't really know where he was going, and ended up passing the place, and had to drive quite a long way until he found a spot to get onto that road.  Although for a couple moments he considered off-roading it across this piece of land, but we were like no! no! since I'm pretty sure there was a barrier on the other side, and I don't think his tiny, run down car would have been able to handle it. 

When we arrived, we were swarmed by men selling little statues.  We politely declined and headed in, where a man in bowling shoes approached us to be his tour guide. He spoke like 6 or 7 languages, so he claimed.  We just liked his bowling shoes and didn't end up hiring him.  We sat down to wait for Jennifer and Ricardo.  Zak and I particularly enjoyed how the men with wares to sell would get all flustered and would hustle to prepare their goods and their makeshift cardboard fan whenever visitors would come out of the cave.  They sold many types of necklaces too.  It was quite the interesting sight, as one man would fan the lady with the piece of cardboard and the other would show off all the necklaces trying very hard to sell them.  Behind us, sat Dominican Tarzan, in his purple shorts, just chilling and having a cigarette, waiting for someone to hire him to put on his show.

Jennifer and Ricardo finally arrived and we paid for our admission (RD$50) and headed into the caves.  It was very interesting.  The first eye was full of "Dominican Carp" and turtles.  The turtles were adorable, especially when one would chase another one around.  Somehow we ended up with a tour guide (I'm not totally sure how this came to be, he just was suddenly leading us around) who was sort of able to speak English and French, but even when he spoke English I could only understand half of what he was saying.  And whenever we'd be posing for a picture he'd say "belle photo" even if he was standing behind us and had no idea what it looked like.  We also saw a big iguana near the end of the first pool/eye (I think it was the first one).  He/she was very cool.  But ran away when we tried to get close enough for a good photo.

Soon we were at the pool where Dominican Tarzan put on his show.  He had a little hang out where he kept a backpack with a book of photos inside that he was showing to another couple.  Eventually we decided to pay him the RD$400 to do his thing.  Totally worth it.  He climbed up on the rocks and then from a spot in the cave wall (marked by a small Dominican flag) he dove off and into the water.  When he surfaced, he did this odd spinning while making crazy man noises in the water thing and then proceeded to swim closer to the ledge the jutted out into the water, came up and made a big fountain of water from his mouth.  We, of course, had pictures taken with him. 

From there, we got into this little ferry/raft to go across the pool, into a bat cave, and out to another pool that was surrounded by lush greens and vines that hung down from above.  (This place was more tarzan-esque than the one where D. Tarzan did his show).  We sat around for a bit, enjoying the view and taking pictures before heading back on the ferry/raft.  Of course, the ferry/raft cost an additional RD$20 each...  My favorite part of that was how the one "ferry master" would put some nice music on via his cell phone while we crossed the pool.  After that, we wandered down to another pool, and saw another iguana who was totally posing while wandering around eating leaves.  I was able to get some good photos of this one (I believe it was a she) and some video footage as well.  Near the end of the tour, we were shown a piece of rock/cave that looked like a dolphin.  Upon our exit, we paid the tour guide RD$50 each and then we too were being shown necklaces and such while we relaxed back up at the beginning.  The necklace sellers were proving to us that their wares were quality by rubbing a part of the necklace against the stone bench and showing us how it was the same material underneath.  We didn't buy anything.  We ended our trip by heading over to the concession to get some water and hang out in the shade.  There were some cool murals on the building that I snapped some photos of. 

We caught a taxi back to the MC and went to EmpareDado for a late lunch.  I was happy to be able to find out which drink it was that I had had the day we ordered in EmpareDado at the office.  I knew it was passion fruit, but apparently, Dominican Spanish has a different word for passion fruit and thus I had not been able to find it on the menu, since my Latin American Spanish dictionary had the non-Dominican word.

The rest of my day was spent struggling with my horrible internet and several power outages.  It caused me great frustration!  But, that's just the way it goes.