2016 Dominican Republic Scenes & Wildlife

Considering we flew from Cornwall to London Gatwick, we were rather surprised to find "Welcome to Yorkshire" on the side of the aircraft! Also they didn't give us much confidence that the plane was painted with bicycles.

The first time that we've travelled on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. It is a nice aircraft but to be honest for passengers there didn't seem to be much difference from other models of planes that we have used. Apparently, there is a big saving for the companies that use them as they are much better for fuel efficiency, which seems to be the only real benefit.

Travelling from the Puerto Plata Airport to our hotel, we were surprised to pass Rice Paddy fields. Apparently it is one of the highest income activities in the Dominican Republic.

There are two separate areas for guests in this hotel at Samana, and the Reception is very impressive in the main hotel building situated on the headland overlooking the main bay. We had booked into a quieter part of newer buildings down in a small adjacent small bay at the west of the property, which was more to our liking, but all services were to the main building.

This Nymphalid was the first butterfly we found, and it was fluttering at a window in the main building. It was rescued and carried outside to release it, only to find that it was quite happy to remain on our hands a while for a number of other guests to have a look at. Finally, we had to encourage it to leave, and it flew off into the hotel gardens.

The location of this hotel was quite beautiful, with the well-tended grounds spreading steeply from the main building down around the small bay. There were plenty of paved tracks for guests to walk, many of which were also used for small vehicles to deliver guests and materials to the various areas. However, there were plenty of steps there (you are warned about this in the Hotel's advertising), but the guest shuttle service made it possible to get to destinations easily if you didn't want to deal with the steps.

Finally down to the other accommodation blocks around the small bay.

A view of the Small bay accommodation blocks from the end of the headland near the main pool looking inland. The fencing at the top of the picture is the approach to the main hotel building, and the surrounding terrain is mostly wild ground.

A view showing the main building of the hotel top left, on the horizon top right is the main hotel pool towards the end of the headland, and below right is one of the restaurants at the edge of the sea in our small bay. As an all-inclusive hotel, guests could eat at any of the four restaurants around the property, although some had to be booked.

This view shows part of the small bay, across to the west end of the property. A minimal beach was in this area, but the surrounding countryside was mainly wild, interspersed with some farming areas.

This pool was close to the main building on the headland top. From here, there were views over both the main beach to the east and the smaller bay on the other side of it, just where the lone Palm Tree is, was another of the speciality restaurants which had to be booked well ahead as it was popular.

Perhaps it is on holiday? Although known as the Giant Tarantula here, this individual only had a leg spread of around 100mm. We found it resting under an overhang from the pool covering of the path to the Restaurant at the end of the headland. I wonder how many people relaxing poolside above would feel as relaxed knowing that these were in the area?

Obviously a good place for local residents, as we also found this small cricket under the overhang a little further along. It's a possibility that the Tarantula would have been waiting for this lunch-on-legs to come along.

The Anolis lizards are a common Genus throughout the Antilles, with a wide range of species often unique to individual islands. The species identified as occurring in the Dominican Republic is shown above, although there was a number of different colour variants noted. Whether this means that there are a number of species or not we couldn't decide. See picture 20 for a rather pretty colouring of a similar lizard.

This thatched rotunda was positioned almost at the end of the headland. Although the general weather in the mornings were hot, humid and sunny, the shade from the roof, and nearby tree shade coupled with the light wind off the sea around the point made it a favourite place for us to pass the rest of the morning after breakfast. Added to this was a superb view East along the coast, and West across and into the small bay, and the relative quietness here was superb. It appears that it wasn't known by many of the guests, so often we were undisturbed for hours.

Hard at work relaxing, and watching the world go by. We would often see people snorkelling in the bay, or canoeing, whilst the bigger boats would pass by off the point from Samana Town going to various destinations.

The distant island was apparently the site of a sister hotel, and fast boats would often take tourists out for a day trip.

A further small beach on the west of our small bay was only approachable by canoe or by swimming. It was also possible to reach by scrambling over rather treacherous rocks from the point, but this was only attempted by a few local people who knew the best way to get there.