SANTA BARBARA DE SAMANA
Cool Caribbean town
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It doesn’t cost you anything, but a good deed has been done :-)
Our journey to the Samana Peninsula began at the bus station of the Dominican capital - Santo Domingo. We found on the Internet the bus schedule to Santa Barbara de Samana, arrived on time, but spent several hours in the bus station building, because the cashier explained to us that the flight that we planned to get on would stop in every locality and would have to go 5.5- 6 hours, and if we wait a couple of hours before the next bus, it will "fly" to Samana in 2.5 hours. The prospect of "crawling" for 6 hours on the bus did not appeal to us, so we decided to hang out a little in the air-conditioned building of the bus station.
Walking around the bus station, we managed to do a good deed, finding a ticket lost by someone, we took it to the information desk, hoping that the bewildered passenger would turn for him there. Then they found a cafe on the second floor, where they decided to wait for their flight. We were lucky that a Dominican girl Erica, who flew in from the United States and was waiting for the bus to her village, sat down at the table. She was interested to learn about life in "Ukraine" (this is how Ukraine sounds in Spanish), and we asked Erica about the Dominican life. An hour later, we already became friends on Facebook and received an invitation to visit her in Jarabacoa . It turns out that, unlike us, striving in the heat and towards the sea, the Dominicans are looking for coolness and flee from the sea to the mountains. And Jarabacoa, located at an altitude of 529 meters above sea level, a town completely unknown to us, is a very popular holiday destination for the Dominicans, especially from Santo Domingo. Erica's bus was announced, we said goodbye to our new friend and stayed to finish our ice cream ourselves.
When our flight was announced, we went to the platform and were a little surprised. There are many buses, but the direction of each becomes known a few minutes before departure, when the driver puts a sign. We excitedly ran between several buses that came up until we found our own. The trip was comfortable and included watching the movie "The Mask " in Spanish, with Stanley Ipkiss saying "Buenos Díaz" to everyone. But a special discovery was that after the "Mask" began "Mask-2. Son of the Mask". This masterpiece of world cinema in 2005 somehow passed us by, so we watched it for the first 10 minutes with curiosity, and then with misunderstanding and even a little disgust. Looking at the IMDB rating, we saw a score of 2.2, which explained a lot. It took a little less than three hours and a yellow-blue bus took us to Santa Barbara de Samana.
The bus arrives directly at the city's most famous architectural ensemble: Bahia Principe Village. This is a shopping complex, consisting of many colorful houses, as if descended from the screens of Westerns. Apparently this is how the classical California Santa Barbara seemed to local architects. We were also impressed by this complex and we photographed it for about fifteen minutes from different angles.
It was only a kilometer and a half from the bus stop to our location. For pedestrian tourists like us, this is not a distance and we did not take any taxis. But it turned out that our villa "Sunhouse Samana" is located on a huge hill and we had to climb about five hundred meters along the road at an angle of 30-35 degrees, which in the heat and with a suitcase turned out to be a challenge. We were greeted by two owners: Richard and his little eared girlfriend Toy Terrier.
Richard, a retired Canadian military, has bought and lives in a huge villa in the Dominican Republic. Apparently he is bored of being alone in such a huge building, so he rents out the rooms of the second floor to travelers for absolutely little money.
Such a room and a huge terrace were waiting for us.
I also want to show you the guest room on the ground floor and the billiard room, where Richard has a huge collection of car models. All four walls are equipped with special shelves with hundreds of cars. It's even hard to imagine how long it takes to wipe the dust in a billiard room 😉😉😉
But the main treasure of our villa, for which it was worth the effort and climb here, is the view of the bay, which opens from the terrace. Just see for yourself.
We were in Santa Barbara de Samana during the New Year holidays, but there were relatively few tourists here. It would seem that the New Year is the main peak of the tourist season in the world, but not in this city. The high tourist season in Santa Barbara de Samana is in the second half of January, when whales come to the coast. Here everyone is "turned" on whales.
On the main square there is a monument to a whale, a little further off the "Museum of Whales".
In Santa Barbara de Samana, there is the office of the famous whale researcher Kim Beddall, where you can sign up for a tour of these animals, in which Kim herself will be a guide.
The main letters in the name of the peninsula on the embankment are also stylized as a whale.
The embankment itself looks pretty. The trees are stylishly trimmed and the lawns are clean.
Beautiful benches and flowers have been planted throughout.
Along the coast there are several towers stylized as captain's bridges of ships, which you can climb and contemplate the surroundings.
What surprised us on the embankment was a New Year's palm draped under a Christmas tree with beautiful numbers 1200. Why it was not 2020 written there, but another number, we did not understand. The first thought that the numbers were simply swapped was not verified by experiment, since we were able to model only 2001 and 2010 from the nearest dates. The second thought sent us to Wikipedia to see what happened 1200 years ago. Perhaps the inhabitants of the city are counting their years from something important that happened in the 820th year?
Wikipedia reported three different events:
1. Algebra has become a science
2. The Byzantine emperor Leo the Fifth is killed
3. The Vikings appeared off the coast of Flanders.
Scrolling through these facts this way and that, we came to the conclusion that they are unlikely to be related to the New Year tree in the Dominican Republic.
The third thought that came to us after that turned out to be prophetic: perhaps the Dominicans are hinting to us that something is wrong with this 2020 year?
With this conclusion, we have completed our small study. 😊😊😊
After walking along the hot promenade, it's time to drop by the beach. On the way to the city beach, the bow of a sunken ship peeps out of the water brutally.
The beach itself is shared by the townspeople with the inhabitants of the Bahia Principe Grand Coyacoa hotel, which is located on a hill nearby. A white elevator shaft from the beach leads to it. We learned that the hotel guests have a "bun" in the form of a free transfer to the island of Cayo Levantado , which in the common people is called "Bacardi", because there was filmed an advertisement for this rum.
The area designated for swimming is not very large, but there were not many swimmers, although the water temperature was close to the ideal 24-25 degrees. Standing on the beach near the hotel's elevator shaft, you see several fragments of the Napoleon bridge, which begins on this beach.
After walking and swimming, we took a picture at the picturesque rocks to the left of the beach and went to explore the "bridge to nowhere", which bears the proud name of the French emperor.
In the Bridge "Napoleon" or "bridge to nowhere", the attraction of the town of Santa Barbara de Samana. Built in the 70s of the last century by the President of the Dominican Republic, who was born in this city. He dreamed of making his hometown the main tourist paradise of the country, but in 1978, alas, he was re-elected, and all investments were redirected to another resort. And the bridge, which connects several small islands in the bay, is now the main place for walking tourists and local couples in love. The first association that arose when we found ourselves on this bridge: yes, this is our Ukrainian "Island of Love", as in the village of Stary Solotvin, Zhytomyr region 🤭🤭🤭. Who has not seen - google and compare.
For those who want to walk along the bridge, we give a spoiler: the bridge does not end when you reach the next island, but goes along it for a long time. We got a little tired until we reached the final veranda, which looks more like a portal in time than a place to rest.
Returning from "Napoleon" 😉, we fell under the charm of a passing tuk-tuk driver named Juan. (his video invitation to the Dominican Republic is in our film about the waterfall " El Limon ")
He promised to show the most interesting places in Santa Barbara, and we could not resist.
We started with a Christmas crèche.
Continued with a monument, some iron woodcutter with a yoke. Then we went with him to the bar "El Trucho" (trout) - it turned out to be not a bar, but an installation where everything is made from empty bottles, including a fence and a Christmas tree.
We drove past the main Catholic church of the city, somewhere right behind it, a school was hidden where local children study.
We dropped into the market, drove around it and looked at the local river, which was slowly crossed by a red cow.
In addition to cows, several horses roam freely in Santa Barbara, eating any greens that surround them.
We parted with our guide, agreeing that later he would take us to the waterfalls "Lemon" and "Coconuts". And they themselves went to shop for locals, where the famous Dominican cigars, sold in tourist places for $ 5-10, cost only 25 pesos (half a dollar).
Here is a photo of this store.
The evening embankment spoiled us with an unexpected meeting. Even here it is not so easy to meet the Soviet Niva car, but here on a distant Caribbean island - please.
We were returning home along our own slope when it was already dark. It turned out that not far from our villa there was a Protestant church, where the evening service was held. We stood for a while, listened to the measured voice of the preacher and went to our room.
The next day, we went to the embankment, caught a passing tuk-tuk, to get 8 kilometers to the ferry station, from where they take us to Cayo Levantado. We could sail to this island directly from the Santa Barbara promenade, but 2000 pesos ($ 40) seemed too expensive for us. We heard that it can be done inexpensively from the ferry crossing, or even free of charge, so after bargaining with a tuk-tuker for 300 pesos ($ 6), we went to the ferry. He brought us to the station and left, we went inside, we were met by a well-dressed and gallant manager, showed us the ferry schedule, announced that the next one would be in 30 minutes and asked for confirmation that we were living in one of the Bahia hotels (one of the the island of Levantado / Bacardi, and the second on the city beach of Santa Barbara de Samana. Confirmation is necessary because the ferry is organized by this network to move its guests. We muttered something inaudible to him, from which the manager concluded that probably we are not guests and explained that they would not be able to take us aboard. There are no tickets for these ferries, but he can ask one of the local guys hanging around the station to take us to the island for a little money of 2000 pesos. That is, at the same price as we could sail off the embankment near our villa 😭.
Frustrated, we left the station and just walked along the road, even further from our city. We found some deserted beach, took pictures, were surprised at the huge waves that suddenly began to splash on the sand. Then I realize that in my quest for the island I lost my cap, which I took off in a tuk-tuk so that it wouldn't be blown away by the wind and stuffed it under the strap of my backpack.
The frustration increased to the size of waves, because this cap has already passed with me in more than 10 countries. We walked towards Santa Barbara on foot, when we passed the ferry station again, I ventured to go ask if they saw "mi sombrero Ucrania"? The manager looked in his office, asked around the guys standing next to him, and they asked someone else. Incredibly, after about five minutes a peasant was brought to us, introduced as the guard of a nearby hotel, who found my cap by the road. He held it in his hands, and was ready to part with this headdress for a symbolic (!!!) 100 pesos, which are equal to 2 dollars. To celebrate, we paid him, but in our hearts we were indignant: how is it possible to take money from people for such a thing?
We walked along the road to Santa Barbara, but managed to walk about a kilometer, when we realized why the waves grew on that beach. The wind came with a downpour. We ran to the nearest village and hid from the downpour in a bus stop. Those few local residents, whom the rain drove under the same roof with us, looked very wary. There are no tourist facilities in their village, which means that the arrival of foreigners here raises concerns. We sat for about fifteen minutes until we saw a small truck with a cellophane booth, which is the public transport here. We rushed to this car, waving our arms in the rain. And, lo and behold, the driver stopped, and we climbed into the back for 200 pesos (4 dollars). There were two elderly, but quite friendly Dominicans, and after 10 minutes they were already on the embankment of Santa Barbara de Samana.
We left this sunny place just over an hour ago, and returned to the city destroyed by the storm. The embankment is littered with debris, the house of Santa Claus in the park is destroyed, and the boards are scattered several meters, the furniture near the cafes is turned over. Where we were that morning, it was raining and blowing, relatively light winds, and a severe hurricane hit Santa Barbara. By our return here the wind died down, the rain had passed, and we, seeing the results of the past storm, simply could not believe our eyes.
But the storm did not calm down for long. After a couple of hours, a downpour came, this is a real tropical downpour that can go on for weeks. We photographed him in the afternoon from the cafe where we were hiding, and then in the evening from our terrace in the villa.
The morning greeted us with a completely different weather. The sun, although it was surrounded by clouds, was shining brightly. We took a couple of pictures on the terrace, had breakfast and went to collect our things.
Saying goodbye to the owner, we went out, photographed the villa in the sunlight, and went to the pier to sail across the bay to the town of Sabana de la Mar.
There is one pleasant feature in life on the hill - the descent 😁 The suitcase quickly rolled down the mountain, carrying with it the owners, who could safely say that Santa Barbara de Samana left a huge, warm mark in their hearts. We would love to visit this cool Caribbean town again.
We hope that our article will help you if you are planning to visit Santa Barbara de Samana. We discovered this destination for ourselves and brought a lot of impressions from this distant Caribbean island. We will be pleased if our adventures in this city were interesting to you.
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