Description
Los Haitises National Park This trip will be focus in Caves expedition plus Rain Forest.
The Los Haitises National Park (the name of which means “high ground” or “mountain” in the language of the ancient Tainos) is one of the Dominican Republic’s most important protected natural landscapes. It covers an area of around 1,600 km2, which forms part of a vast karst system created 50 million years ago, and comprises a rich mosaic of marine and terrestrial ecosystems: estuaries, inlets, bays, keys and mogotes [hummocks] — the curious, cone-shaped rock formations that are a feature of the area’s landscape — as well as sinkholes, mangroves, etc. In other words, this is a huge park teeming with natural attractions where you can enjoy unique adventures.
Apart from its indisputable wealth, this great National Park is also an ideal place to discover the rich (both present-day and pre-Hispanic) cultural heritage of the Dominican Republic Places such as Sabana de la Mar show the modern charm of the Dominican Republic, but in nearly 100 caves scattered throughout the Park, you can discover the country’s largest collection of prehistoric paintings, an invaluable legacy of ancient, pre-Columbian civilizations.
Los Haitises offers all kinds of experiences from thrilling adventures to visits focusing on appreciating the area’s natural wonders or its archaeological treasures. Of course, you can always have a mixture of all these, and therefore gain a much better appreciation of the Park’s wealth in general.
One of the features of the Park’s karst landscape — limestone rocks eroded by water — is the formation of caves of many different sizes; these are one of Los Haiteses’ chief attractions. They draw visitors for two reasons: firstly, their immense natural wealth and the beauty of their rock formations. The second, and perhaps more important, reason is that many of these caves contain amazing collections of pictographs and petroglyphs created hundreds (even thousands) of years ago by the island of La Española’s original inhabitants. Places such as the caves of La Reyna, La Arena, San Gabriel, Willi and La Línea are veritable galleries of tremendously impressive cave paintings that no visitor should miss.
The Los Haitises National Park is open throughout the year, but if you want to be extra careful, minimize the chance of rain, and enjoy fewer extreme temperatures, plan your visit for between November and April. The summer here is hotter and humid.
