Travelers routinely describe the tour of the 27 waterfalls at Damajagua as ‘the coolest thing I did in the DR.’ It's hard to disagree. Guides lead you up, swimming and climbing through the waterfalls. To get down you jump – as much as 8m – into the sparkling pools below.
Today it’s mandatory to wear a helmet and a life jacket, and guides are trained in first aid and CPR. It wasn’t always that way, however. Flashback to 2004, when a handful of unofficial guides led tours at the waterfalls. There were no safety measures, no visitors’ center and the occasional minor injury. Then a young boy drowned.
Peace Corps volunteer Joe Kennedy – grandson of Robert F Kennedy and great-nephew of JFK – had just arrived. And there was nothing there. ‘It felt like you were out in the middle of nowhere having this virgin experience,’ he says. There was no visitors center, no restaurant, nothing. ‘There simply wasn’t any money for helmets or life jackets and training.’
Kennedy applied for and received grant money from both USAID (US$50,000) and the UN Development Program (US$30,000). ‘The challenge,’ he says, ‘wasn’t just to increase safety precautions, but also to find sustainable ways to make money from the waterfalls in a way that would benefit the community.’ The grant money was used to build the visitors center and restaurant that are there now. With the help of several Puerto Plata area resorts, Kennedy raised upwards of US$10,000 to purchase life jackets and helmets.
These days a guide is required, but there’s no minimum group size, so you can go by yourself if you wish. You’ll need around four hours to make it to the 27th waterfall and back. The falls are open from 8:30am to 4pm, but go early, before the crowds arrive, and you might just have the whole place to yourself.
You can go up to the seventh, 12th or 27th waterfall. Most ‘jeep safari’ package tours only go to the seventh waterfall. You should be in good shape and over the age of 12. The entrance fee varies depending on your nationality and how far you go; foreigners pay RD$460 to the highest waterfall and less to reach the lower ones.
US$1 of every entrance fee goes to a community development fund. Eight people sit on the board, including the Secretary of Environment, to make sure the money gets spent wisely. Considering that an average of 3000 tourists go through the falls every month, the bank account is going well – plans are underway to build a library for the local school, fix a local church and build foot bridges over a nearby river. Other Peace Corps volunteers are continuing the project Kennedy began.
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To get to the falls, go south from Imbert on the highway for 3.3km (and cross two bridges) until you see a sign on your left with pictures of a waterfall. From there it’s about 1km down to the visitor’s center. Alternatively, take a gua-gua from Puerto Plata and ask to get off at the entrance. The big Texaco station at Imbert serves as a crossroad for the entire area. There is a frequent gua-gua service to Santiago (RD$80, 1¼ hours) and Puerto Plata (RD$40, 30 minutes).
Built in 1893 atop Cerro de los Coyotes, this fortress saw the last stand of Benjamín Zeledón, the 1912 hero of resistance to US intervention. The marines managed to take the fortress – as witnessed by a young man n…
Among the major buildings worst hit by the earthquake of 2000 (which also destroyed about 80 homes) was 1928 Iglesia de San Jerónimo, the spiritual heart of Masaya and one of the most recognizable silhouettes on the…
Inside the alcaldía (mayor’s office), this museum honors Masayans who gave their lives during the revolution. There are walls of photos and interesting displays of bomb-building materials and weapons, as well as per…
Seven blocks west of the Parque Central is an inspiring view in a region famed for them: that across Laguna de Masaya to the smoking Santiago crater. The attractive, if crumbling, malecón (waterfront promenade) was …
The original church at this location, also called Iglesia San Sebastián, was built around 1700; it was burned down by William Walker in 1856. The current version, built in 1925, sits at the ancient center of Monimbó…
Parroquia El Calvario is a squat colonial structure with no spire, most remarkable for the extra-gory statues of Jesus and the thieves being crucified found right at the entrance. Those are original – the rest had t…
Masaya's elegant former train station, built in 1926 on the north side of the city, is a local landmark. In 2013, the city announced plans to convert it into a cultural center, but at time of writing the project was…
At the center the town is the 1750 Parroquia de La Asunción, an attractive but scarred late-baroque beauty that the Spanish government has offered to help repair.
The modern Iglesia de San Miguel, whose resident San Miguel Arcángel makes the rounds during the procession of St Jerome, is worth a peek.
El Triunfo has a prime location, in the historic centre of Cusco, just half a block from Plaza de Armas. It offers practical rooms with cable TV and free Wi-Fi. Guest can enjoy beautiful views from this old characteristic city from the terrace. The tour desk can arrange city tours along the museums, cathedrals and markets, as well as to the famous Machu Picchu. A continental breakfast is served in Hostal El Triunfo´s dining area. Being located centrally many restaurants and bars are within the direct surroundings. El Triunfo´s Hostal is situated 4 km from Velazco Astete Airport and 2 km from the bus station.
Please note there are stairs to reach the hostel. Based on local tax laws, Peruvian citizens (and foreigners staying more than 59 days in Peru) must pay an additional fee of 18%. To be exempt from this 18% additional fee (IVA), a copy of the immigration card and passport must be presented. Please note both documents are required for fee exemption. Guests who are not able to present both documents will be required to pay the fee. Foreign business travellers who require a printed invoice, will also be charged the additional 18% regardless of the length of their stay in Peru. This fee is not automatically calculated in the total costs for the reservation.
I recently bought a sig whiskey5 5-25x52 for my 204. I took it out after rock chucks 4 times last week and the elevation kept creeping up or down on me, like 3 or 4 inches. Windage was always fine. I had to re-zero it at the beginning of each day. I was spinning the turrets a little bit, but only out to 350 yards with a 100 yard zero. It is mounted in talley lighweights and the gun is a vssfII (its an accurate gun). I double checked the rings with my wheeler torque wrench and they were good. The gun was stored in a padded case driving around, same type of case my 223 with a vortex pst was stored in during the same trip and it didn’t have any problems holding zero. I am pretty sure it didn’t take any hard hits or get bounced around - and if it was just one time I could chalk it up to something like that, but 4 different times losing zero has to be the scope?
This is my first sig scope - did I just get a lemon? Anybody else have any similar problems with a whiskey5 or any sig scope for that matter? I haven’t reached out to Sig yet, I was going to do that tomorrow ...I am wondering if I made a mistake going with Sig and should kick it down the road? Any thoughts?
I have no experience with that scope, though I plan on getting one for a 338 Norma build I have in the works. I can tell you however, that sig's customer support is very good, if it is the scope, so rest easy.
I had a kilo 2000 that, over a couple years, I scratched the laser lense up pretty bad, and it's ranging performance degraded significantly. Totally my fault for not taking better care of it, I was hard on it. I called sig, asked if I could get it worked on, they emailed me a return label, I sent it in, and a week later recieved a tracking number for a brand new kilo 2200 free of charge. So if you have a lemon, your certainly covered.
I returned a 3-15x44 whiskey 5 because I couldn’t get the zero stop to set and maintain zero. I wasted a lot of ammo and spent a lot of frustrating time with thatscop and just gave up on it. Maybe your zero stop is slipping like mine was?
Mine was one of the newer black models...which was nice to look at and that electronic level was great, but the zero stop system was terrible.
I hated the zero stop system so much I returned it to the retailer for a nightforce. I didn’t even want to try and mess with another model.
Mine is the model with the capped elevation turret - graphite in color. I don’t think is has the same zero stop system.
Can't get worse than Burris's idea of a "zero stop" on their veracity line, where they just put a pin in a groove and give you max 1 whole turn of the turret minus 1 moa. Actually lets not give them any idea's, they might find a way to make it worse.
I just wanted to give an update on my Sig Electro Optics customer service experience - it was AWFUL. I just got my whiskey 5 back from them after they had it for 6 weeks. It came with a note saying the scope was fine, there is nothing wrong with it and I need to do a better job mounting it. Needless to say I was pissed...So I called them up and they sent me to a guy who does the testing. I told him I know the scope wouldn’t hold zero, I checked my rings, used a torque wrench etc. and I expressed my frustration that they didn’t do anything to fix it after having it for 6 weeks. This guy has the umitigated gall to tell me that they get 1000’s of scopes returned to them with claims they don’t hold zero and every scope They test functions flawlessly. He proceeds to tell me that 100% of the time the customer isn’t mounting the scope correctly. He then asks me if I used a picatiny rail - I told him I do not. A few minutes later he asks me if I was sure I wasn’t using a picatiny rail - my response was no. A few minutes later he asked me a third time if I was using a picatiny rail to which I responded “seriously? I am not an idiot, quit asking me that question, the answer isn’t going to change”. They want me to send my scope back in so they can look at it again, eye roll. The scope also came back with some white sticker residue all over it - wtf? The guy was a real jerk - treated me poorly and I never want to do business with this company again. Too bad - I really liked the glass, it was clear and the scope matched the urban camo paint job I just got on my hs precision stock
There are a lot of good scope companies out there, my humble recommendation is to is to buy from somebody besides SIG. I have dealt with Vortex a few times and they treated me awesome - even when it was my fault the scope was jacked up, had nothing to do with their workmanship.
*update*. I got a call from the supervisor, who apologized for my experience and replaced my scope. I haven’t had a chance to mount it and test it yet, but I am a little less fired up than I was a couple weeks ago. Sometimes you just have to talk to the right people.
Not surprised, mine was junk. I am so happy I was able to return mine to the retailer and not have to deal with the customer service - I know the frustration and hate to hear you had to go through that.
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