Day 67: December 8, 2024 – Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Los Tres Ojos (Three Eyes) National Park in Santo Domingo is composed of a series of open-air interconnected limestone caves. The three eyes refer to three small lakes (lagoons) within the caves.

The prettiest of the lagoons is Lago de Azufre (Sulphur Lagoon, although it doesn’t actually have any sulphur) which has an iridescent turquoise hue due to calcium minerals.

You can take a small wooden barge pulled by rope to a fourth lake outside the caves.

Tree trunk carvings in the park.

This excursion was not without a few glitches. The park was less than 3 miles away from our ship, so I set off on foot, hoping to do some bird-spotting on the way. About 10 minutes into my walk a police officer stopped me to tell me it was too dangerous to walk there. I was skeptical; the street did not seem unsafe. I thought maybe he was trying to drum up some business for the taxi drivers standing nearby. When a few minutes later a second one stopped me and gave me the same warning about “criminal elements,” I reluctantly took a taxi instead. Once in the park I discovered it was a favorite spot for mosquitos. I hadn’t seen a single mosquito in any of the Caribbean islands we’ve been to so far, so I didn’t bring any bug spray. I ended up with quite a few souvenir mosquito bites. (And hopefully no dengue fever…) But it was worth it for a view of this beautiful place.