Parc National de Los Haitos

About 10-15 Km from Las Terrenas is Parc National de Los Haitos. Geologically it is very young, only 15 000 year as opposed to the mainland. The Island is being pushed out of the water by seismic activity and contains a lot of interesting nature to visit.
Edit, de owner of Fata Morgana also happened to be a guide for over 19 years in this natural parc that you can either visit hiking or with a boat. 6 people were mandatory for Edit to be able to organize the trip. The 4 remaining people of the group of 7 all wanted to go and also another group of 4 Spanish people that stayed in the hotel wanted to come. They had to be back at 3pm so we choose the boat trip as this was shorter in time.
From Sanchez we embarked in a raft that brought us to the other side of the bay. The natural parc is protected by only 9 guards, but it's fairly hard to get on the island and only fishermen are allowed to have some shelter for there stay during their fishing days.
Our first stop was a cave where a river appeared out of nothing and Edit persuaded us to go for a swim in the water that's so pure you can drink it (which I did and it tasted very soft).
Next the boat took us to another (dry) cave thereby swerving between the numerous mini-islands above which many vultures were hovering in the seach for food. These next caves we were lead through a couple of wooden platforms and we were shown drawings that were estimated 1500-2000 years old, made by the indians when thy lived there. Later on in history these caves also housed the natives that fled from the Spanish and even more recently they have been used for political en juridical refugees. Consequently lots of drawings there are mimicking the oldest ones, but only a few are actually the real stuff.
Later on we also went into the mangrove were we got some explanation about the purposefulness of them for men and nature.
When we were about to head back, the sea became a bit more wild so we all put on yellow and orange coats and we put them on backwards.
Some people made a remark earlier on that I was still pretty white for being for two months in the Caribean, so I did a little effort this time. As a result my legs are painfully burned from the knee up halfway... The Dominicans weren't able to differentiate between me and there own people anymore !! (That's how tanned I am now)