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By Mya Guarnieri
The wooded lagoon glowed with a color often only noticed in mouthwash alley, and beneath the surface of its crystal clear water, fallen branches looked like open hands in a condition to cling. The rocks at the bottom were either a few meters deep or incredibly deep – the clarity of the water made it identifiable.
Hoyo Claro, a spring-filled pool known as the cenote (let’s say NO-tay) in the Dominican Republic, just a few miles inland from the sumptuous all-inclusive resorts of Punta Cana, but it seemed like another universe.
If sandy Caribbean beaches are the face of the Dominican Republic, its streams, rivers and cenotes are its veins, arteries and heart. The capital, Santo Domingo, is framed by three rivers, the Haina, the Isabela and the Ozama, upon which the conquering Spaniards built their fort, the first in the Americas, in 1496. The country, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, to the west, is laced with waterways and peppered with those irresistible neon blue cenotes.
Some Dominican friends objected to my plan to rent a car and stop only at the rivers and cenotes last summer. The country has a reputation for being a bit rugged, a concept reinforced through a U. S. State Department advisory. The U. S. Department of Homeland Security, which warns U. S. citizens to exercise extra caution when traveling to the Dominican Republic. And with 65 out of every 100,000 Dominicans dying each year in traffic accidents, the country also has the highest rate of road fatalities in the Americas, according to World Bank data.
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