Interestingly enough, this weekend went as I had expected. It was NOT worth the trip. I'm glad I went because now I can say I've been to the extreme southwest of the Dominican Republic, however if given the option to repeat the experience, I would answer with a loud NO.

We went to Lago Enriquillo, which is a saltwater lake in the southern interior of the DR close to the Haitian border. Let's just set the scene a minute. We pull up to the "parking lot," which is this ridiculously swelteringly hot, arid, desert-y dirt lot. Oh, and the critters. There were way too many iguanas, which here measured about 8 inches high and 2 and a half feet long. When the bus pulled up, 6 or 7 of them waddled up and surrounded the bus. Way too Jurassic Park. We waited in IguanaLand for probably about an hour for a man who will drive us to an island where there's supposedly a museum and some red eyed iguanas. No one in my group really wanted to go to this island, but our director insisted that it'd be good for us to check it out for future years. When the boat man gets there, he duct tapes a motor onto this boat and has half of the group pile on. We cross the lake, which is pleasant enough, but the extremely noticeable scent of gasoline is disturbing. And the fact that the lake is known for its high population of crocodiles isn't something that helps either. Here we are on the boat, pretty much just nervous. We get to the other side, which smells overwhelmingly of sulfur. The scene below greets us. I can't even imagine how many crocodiles are hanging out in that murky water. We managed to get to the rickety ramp onto the island after the boat drivers had to get out and push us forward and ask some os us to get out, too. We get out and walk around the island. Of course, there are killer bees that we have to avoid. We walk around the desert in the blistering sun trying to avoid little cactus thickets that attack our feet. We finally get to the "museum" and realize that it consists of the 3 animal skulls (think cow, pig, goat. Not anything cool.) So we sit around waiting for the boat to bring back the other half of the group so we can get off that island. In the mean time, we talk about how to build fires and how we could catch a red eyed iguana for food. Basically, we were all ready to be stranded on that nightmare indefinitely. Fortunately, the boat did come back and take us back to shore. We rushed to the guagua and sat in the AC waiting for everyone else to come back. When they did, we unfortunatley had several stops yet in the day. We were all cranky. But the next day was much better. We went to Bahía de las Águilas, which is a gorgeous 27km long white sand beach that's super isolated from Dominican Republic. It's on the extreme southwest corner of the country almost in Haiti. We took a boat to get there, and while there were not bothered by any venders or anything of the sort. We only saw 3 or 4 other people there the entire time we were there. And some sand rays, crabs, and other critters. But this beach was by far the most gorgeous beach I've ever seen.