Jarabacoa

My friends and I rented a house in Jarabacoa for the weekend.  I’ll have to say this was one of my favorite weekends in the DR.  The house was walking distance from the center of town and added bonuses like a pool and fully equipped kitchen.  Plus, it was only 10 dollars per night person!  We cooked some of our meals together so I finally got the opportunity to learn how to cook mangu!  I have experimented with cooking some Dominican foods on my own, but I had not been brave enough to work with platanos yet. You can check out the step by step process below. 

family style breakfast

We hiked a small mountain called El Mogote.  It was about a 5 hour hike with beautiful views.

El Mogote hike

on the way up

sweaty!

group shot

view from the top

amazing

The clouds came in just as it was time for us to head back down the mountain.

the view as we descended

I also took my friends back to the Coffee factory my family and I went to because it was so interesting!

Cafe Monte Alto

coffee beans drying

so much coffee!

packaging machine

each one of these bags weighs 180 pounds

The steps to make mangu:

peel the platanos verdes

boil in only water with a little salt until soft

mash with a little butter and the water used to boil

Hard at work!  :)

Making Fried Cheese (a Dominican favorite)

Israeli Salad

family style dinner

yum!

We took another hike to a waterfall called El Salto Jimenoa Uno.  This is the waterfall featured at the beginning of the movie Jurassic Park.  As I looked around me I did feel like a dinosaur could pop out of the trees at any moment.  The waterfall and surrounding area were amazing.  

el salto de jimenoa uno

Does it remind you of Jurassic Park?

las chicas

el grupo

beautiful!

It felt like a pterodactyl could fly out at any moment...

Our other Jarabacoa adventure was white water rafting.  We rafted down 13km rapids on the Rio Yaque del Norte. There are no pictures because it wasn’t safe for my camera, but it was so fun!