Bayahibe travel guide

Bayahibe is a fishing village (about 25 km east of La Romana) on a small bay in a region of dry tropical forest and cactus on the edge of the Parque Nacional del Este, a great place to stay, with excursions, diving, budget lodgings and cafés. Recent archaeological discoveries have shown that there were groups of hunter-gatherers living in the Bayahibe area around 2000BC and that later immigrants arriving around 1500BC used pottery, made weights for their fishing nets and tools from conch and coral to grate foods. Its proximity to the park and offshore islands has made it popular with divers and it is considered it the best dive destination in the country. Small wooden houses and church of the village are on a point between the little bay and an excellent, 1½ km curving white-sand beach fringed with palms. There are lots of rooms and cabañas to rent and several bars and restaurants for low-budget travellers but all-inclusive resorts now dominate the area. Plenty of fishing and pleasure boats are moored in the bay and it is from here that boats depart for Isla Saona.

Isla Saona is a picture book tropical island with palm trees and white sandy beaches, set in a protected national park. However it is also an example of mass tourism, which conflicts with its protected status. Every day some 1000 tourists are brought on catamarans, speed boats or smaller lanchas, for a swim, a buffet lunch with rum on the beach and departure around 1500 with a stop off at the ‘swimming pool’ a patch of waist-deep water on a sand bank, where more rum is served. The sea looks like rush hour when the boats come and go. If you arrange a trip independently on a lancha, a smaller, slower boat, the local association of boat owners assures uniform prices.