Playa Limon - Much Ado About Nothing
Trip Start
Mar 03, 2005
1
155
235
Trip End
Ongoing
Playa Limon,
Dominican Republic
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Not able to work out if we had actually previously paid for everything, Jason proceeded to annoy the living bejeezus out of us. I have a low tolerance for true down and out idiots. Jason could possibly be the defining idiot of this trip - and he used the word "Nigger" again half a dozen times.
We hitch a Gua Gua minibus to the Bus Station before jumping on a normal Bus for the ride to Higuey. Jump off, wait, jump on another Gua Gua... We are heading to the middle of nowhere - the almost uninhabited beach of Playa Limon.
We are crammed into the minibus, with Merengue music pumping from the speakers. There are rolling hills of palm trees and lush greeness everywhere. Transport around this part of the country has not been as easy as we anticipated. Luckily Dominicans are a lovely bunch on the whole, and the minibus has a number of helpful people on board who inform us where to get off.
The locals tell us to jump off in the one horse town that is El Cedro. Nothing much goes on in El Cedro, but word got around that Goatgirl and I needed transportation to the beach, so soon enough two 16 year old youngsters turned up with their Motorbikes. The boys were to be our taxi drivers.
Playa Limon (Lemon Beach) is 3.5 kilometres away. That is quite a distance considering I had a large backpack on my back and a smaller on the front. This required a unique balancing system involving all possible muscles, with one hand gripping the bike, the other gripping the small pack, and my entire body leaned to one side to counter-act the weight. It was a tough ride up and down muddy bumpy roads. I was pushed forward as far as I could go. The poor young bloke probably thought I was trying to bonk him, but I had to cling on like that instead of falling off backwards.
Our arrival, much to both the young driver and my relief, was only ten or so minutes from departure.
Rancho La Cuerva is at the foot of a small hill, a few hundred coconut tree filled metres from the coast. No one is here except for the Austrian owner and his staff of locals, including one man with a handgun slung to his waist. The Austrian's English is fine, and we are designated a decently clean room before lunching on red beans and rice, and salad.
Post sustanence, Goatgirl and I wandered back down the road and towards the beach, with the Rancho Relaxo's Dog at our heels. He followed us to the coastline, which revealed kilometres and kilometres of emptiness. There was not a person in sight in either direction - just sand, blue water and palm trees.
Our canine companion continued to follow us as we walked in one direction. Our only contact for over an hour was a deserted ghost village resort (which was kind of eerie given the empty bar on the beach and overgrown cabins), the odd local, and a family who had managed to bog their 4WD in the sand. This coast is prime for beachcombing, with hermit crabs and sea dollars everywhere. We rounded a few corners before realising it was getting a little dark. Once again we had chatted too long and had probably come a little too far.
Goatgirl, the Ranch's Dog and I returned to La Cuerva by dark for dinner. The Austrian was keen to chat to us - I guess 12 years out here with limited contact must make you slightly batty and open to conversation. Many daytrippers and tour groups come through here to have lunch and ride horses on the empty beach. But at night there are only a few customers, and today we are the only ones.
Goatgirl impresses the local girls working there by giving them Salsa lessons. Surprisingly they don't really know how to do it until shown. She has them laughing along, as it does seem kind of weird that a white girl from Jersey is teaching Dominican natives how to do Latin dancing.
In the morning we again walked to Playa Limon, this time plonking ourselves in the sand for a few hours. The beach is totally empty, except for a few cows behind us in the grass and coconut palms, and a wild Pig wandering on the sand. It isn't often you see an actual Pig at the beach. The water at Playa Limon is stunning to swim in. There are waves, but the water is blue, clear and not too cold. It is a warm sunny day and we are frying to a rather delightful brown.
Rather than laze the entire day away, we did wander in the other direction up the beach. There was one guy on a horse in the distance, probably one of the nearby coast guards, and a lone fisherman far away with a net. But apart from the Pig, there was only miles and miles of empty sand.
There must be few places left anywhere in the world like Playa Limon.
