November 7-9
Hello everyone!
There’s always a ‘highest’ point somewhere. Some are obviously higher than others. Not all of them are equal. Particularly their campsites…
The Dominican Republic hosts the highest point in the Caribbean. Four of the five highest, actually. But what surprised me was the elevation. 3,087 metres. Over 10,000 feet. Higher than any point in El Salvador, Malawi or the Czech Republic. I haven’t lived in a country with a peak this tall since being in Kazakhstan thirteen years ago.
Unlike Khan Tengri, which is also known as ‘Little K2’, the Dominican mountain can be scaled with relative ease. I mean, it’s not easy, but it isn’t a 7,000-metre-high monster. Since 1962, it has been called Pico Duarte, named after one of the founders of the country.
My initial thoughts were concern for the trails going up the mountain. These soon turned to more immediate panic about the car, which was starting to shake and splutter. Getting up the final hills to Jarabacoa was hard enough; it was going to be a challenge to ascend further to Manabao. We parked at a petrol station and started to investigate. Shortly after, another car pulled up. The man spoke no English, and Google Translate would suggest that he didn’t speak Spanish either. His voice note about what he thought was wrong with the car read: My friend is Sergio and I am a Jehovah’s witness. The accent here is tough.
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Somehow, this amateur mechanic and possibly part-time door knocker fiddled with the car enough to make it shake less. Driving in manual, our Qashqai struggled but succeeded with the hills up to Manabao. Due to the two-hour delay, we had a later-than-planned dinner before heading to bed, ready for a 6am breakfast.
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Our breakfast spread was accompanied by the sounds of speeding motorbikes and the gentle clip-clopping of mules. Dozens of mules. These would become a core aspect of our weekend experience. Mules are used to transport things (and sadly, occasionally people) up to Pico Duarte’s campsite. It didn’t seem like we had a choice in the matter.
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The entrance was a picture of chaos. Bags strewn everywhere, many people (it seemed too many) milling about…and not many people actually moving. We were subjected to an old man with a beard telling us what seemed to be an epic saga (translated, it was ‘don’t drop litter’ and a couple of other parts) before everyone had to line up for a wristband. Being given out by one person.
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Though there were many people at the start, crowds quickly thinned out as we started our 18 km hike to base. The first few kilometres were pretty flat and dry, meaning we made good progress up to the first major checkpoint. By this time, hunger was striking once again, so the random selection of pineapple, cheese and crackers worked a treat. This area was called La Laguna: The Lagoon. No pool to be found, but there was drinkable water. It would prove to be the last before the campsite.
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The terrain we were encountering was wild, particularly a section with steep walls either side of us as we trudged on quite soft clay-like ground. We felt that we were making good time, only having to pause when packs of mules came up behind us, burdened by packs of food, utensils and backpacks. The problem was that this was happening pretty frequently.
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We had been lucky with the weather in that it was dry. It was quite sunny, which made us quite sweaty, until about 1pm, when we suddenly seemed to enter the spooky zone. It’s at this point that I should reference La Ciguapa. Don’t repeat that last sentence - saying the name three times may spell your doom!
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There is a character in Dominican folklore who haunts the high forests of the country. She is said to have long, black hair that covers most of her features. The girl from The Ring, basically. Though this character has backward-facing feet. We have been told that many people have disappeared on this mountain…’because of her’. The cloudy, eerie setting of our early afternoon section of the hike would have been perfect…if she wasn’t nocturnal.
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The fact that I’m writing this blog is your spoiler that we survived, breaking through to some blue skies and stunning panoramas of verdant forest.
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We arrived at the campsite at about 3:45pm, our home for the next two nights. Most of us hadn’t really thought about what this campsite would look like. We had been sent a picture that had gotten us excited…
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…so we were confused when we arrived…here…
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There are elements that won’t be noticeable here. The noise from other travellers. The fumes coming from the kitchen as each guide cooked up something from the supplies brought by the mules (how they didn’t make themselves ill, I can’t imagine). Oh, and the mules. Because they were staying here too. And it seemed that a lot of them needed the toilet. Speaking of toilets, I used the woods. I’m glad I didn’t have to use the actual toilets.
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We had a decision to make. If we stuck to the original plan, we would be spending most of the next day here. The alternative: to hike up to the peak, back to camp, and all the way down…in one day. 28 kilometres. Having just hiked 18 kilometres and gained 1600 metres in elevation. Eventually, this became our decision.
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Even if we hadn’t made our decision in the early evening, the fact that hardly any of us slept because of the lack of comfort and noise coming from many others who clearly weren’t interested in peaking for sunrise may have ended up making that decision for us. Some great stars during that awake time for those who looked at them, at least.
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I saw them shortly before six of our ten started our trudge to the top at about 4:15am. The thick fleece that I had been wearing quickly got stripped as our temperatures rose from the exertion. A minor detour in the wrong direction left us chasing the sunrise, but we arrived at the highest peak in the Caribbean at about 6:30am, 15 minutes before the sun rose to signify the start of Sunday.
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Pico’s head is up here, watching over the eastern side of the mountain. Pretty good view, though the forests behind his noggin are also stunning in the golden light.
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After a quick toast at the top, it was time to descend. This section was beautiful, and I had it to myself for quite a long time. The throngs that had been at the entrance were nowhere to be found. We were told later on that many of those who were at the start weren’t actually hiking to the top of Pico Duarte, instead doing other offshoot walks.
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After a very quick pause for breakfast, we started to undertake the part of the hike that we had been expecting to do on Monday, not Sunday. For a while, we felt completely alone with nature. It was stunning, with the cloud having lifted a little.
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The walk down seemed milder than the walk up the previous day, with the eerie cloud returning. After progressing carefully through the soft clay and steep, walled sections, I came out from a toilet break alone and on the flat section. The part that was so easy on the way…was now a quagmire.
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This is where fatigue properly set in. With over 40 kilometres in the legs, and less than 4 hours sleep in the body and mind, it began to get tough to carefully pick the right line to avoid becoming knee deep in mud. Clearly it had rained down here. A lot. So a bit later than hoped, at about 3:30pm, I emerged across the bridge back at the start. I was the final one of our group to finish.
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Of course, we still had work to do. We didn’t have anywhere to stay, and we weren’t sure whether my car would run. Both ended up fine, with us managing to book a last-minute stunner of an AirBnB just outside of Jarabacoa for a cheaper rate than advertised.
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Hiking Pico Duarte was a challenging and immensely rewarding experience. It’s so easy to forget that you are on a Caribbean island as you traipse through pine forest well over 2,000 metres above sea level. The experiences, both positive and those of the campsite, were great bonding. Most importantly, no one got taken by La Ciguapa. I better finish now so I don’t accidentally write the name for a third time…
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Love you all,
Matt
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