Extreme Dominican Republic: Pico Duarte, Rafting and Bahía de las Águilas

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The Dominican Republic holds the tallest mountain in the Caribbean and adventure landscapes that have little to do with the beach postcard. This extreme 9-day itinerary starts in Santo Domingo but quickly goes deep into the Central Range. Jarabacoa — the Dominican ecotourism capital — offers rafting on the Yaque del Norte river, with class III-IV rapids between walls of tropical forest, and is the base for the great adventure: the ascent of Pico Duarte, the highest mountain in the Caribbean at 3,087 meters. Two days of trekking among native pine forest, tree ferns and mountain rivers end at the summit, with a Dominican flag flying. After the peak, Constanza offers an astonishing alpine landscape at Valle Nuevo: at 2,200 meters you walk among grasslands, endemic frailejons and glacial lagoons in the middle of the tropics. The route changes radically in the south, at Bahía de las Águilas — an 8-km pristine beach inside Jaragua National Park, reachable only by 4x4 or boat, with no hotels, no beach bars and nothing more than white sand and turquoise water.