Hiking to the Taino Drawings

Costs: $30.00 pp USD

This hike is a beautiful but long trail with incredible scenery and gorgeous vistas. Know your health in order to climb up, up and up for much of this journey, often times in the sun. Bring water, good shoes, a maybe a hat, and take breaks when necessary.

We drive you 30 minutes to this mountain valley region and let you discover paths used by locals to homes only accessible through these trails. At the end, you'll reach barely seen Taino drawings located up and away from the roads and cities.
 

A Hike to the Tainos  It first struck me as I gazed from the window of the plane. The island below, small and innocuous on the in-flight map, immediately came alive with the sharp contours of her mountainous terrain. Little huts and smallholdings, daubed in exotic shades of blue and pink, appeared like tiny pinheads on a map - and I felt a rush of excitement that this island still belonged to nature. In that split second a craving for adventure was instilled - I could not wait to plunge into the mysteries of those jagged emerald ridges and the plummeting gorges, almost black in the shadows. The stately name of "Dominican Republic" seemed a little inappropriate to describe what I saw. This imposing sight was more evocative of Quisqueya, the name by which the Taino Indians had known the island before the Spanish took it from them. Seizing my first chance to get off the highway, I found myself in the sparse Cordillera Central west of Bonao. I had literally reached the end of the road - the last hurricane had torn it away to leave a knife-edge precipice. From there a mule track led us up into the hills. We were in search of a cave several hours away containing Taino art. To begin with we ascended a zigzagging trail through shaded pine forest. To breathe the delicious fragrance of these altitudes is like stepping into a different world from the musky aromas of the tropical maritime climate of the coast. Pine, orange, limoncillo, and eucalyptus - it’s a heady cocktail and one that I took in until my lungs were ready to burst. Once you get to above 2,500 meters, the temperature is either hot or cold, with little mid-ground. During our ascent onto the ridge, the cloudy skies favored us, but on arriving at the top the prickly heat of the sun made itself known. The mid-morning sun fell gloriously upon the lost valleys.  In the spring the leaves of the omnipresent Framboyan tree turn a deep, vivid orange. Local belief has it that this timely occurrence is to remind Christians of the blood shed by Jesus Christ at this time. The effect is a unique spectacle as the mountains are banded by floral stripes the color of orange bell peppers. So the path rises and drops over one of those pristine emerald ridges i’d seen from the window of the plane.  I learned later that going up is the easy part, so it pays to drink up the endless mountain vistas while you can.  Breaking the piercing silence, my companion began recounting the myths that the people of the area still adhere to. About the benevolent and malevolent Indian spirits who roam the hills.  Precious little must have changed since this area was first settled more than five hundred years ago by desperate Tainos fleeing the bitter backlash of Columbus’ initially peaceful overtures. World and Dominican history has traditionally made it understood that the Tainos were all but exterminated by brutal repression. However, in recent years, genetic tests have showed that the number of those who resisted the genocide was much higher than earlier thought. No Spaniard in his right mind would have followed the runaways into these parts. So it was that runaway communities made this difficult terrain there new home, farming the steep slopes in their timeless way.  For a group supposedly extinct 100 years after the discovery of Hispaniola, their influence remains a profound and proud one on the language, culture and identity of Dominicans today.e arrive drained at the cave, a strange and giant boulder that juts out of the mountainside in a worrying insecure fashion. On the vast shadowed flipside are some impressive carvings in remarkable condition. Taino art styles have become a particular favorite of mine. Known for their communal use of hallucinogenic plants, the Taino artists were clearly more into impressionism than realism. The favorite subjects here is the head, with a kaleidoscope of facial expressions from deeply tortured to deeply narcotized. And onwards the mountain trails lead, crossing streams and winding through valleys.  It would be a nice place to camp.  But we decided, with leaden legs and empty stomachs, to head back to Blanco. Going down was another story. A battle not to slip on your ass along trails littered with dry, loose gravel.  Comedy tumbles are frequent, with arms searching for balance in an exaggerated windmill style.  At times it is pretty edgy, those dark shadows beneath seem to have no definite end to them.  Bringing a rather black sense of humor to our plight, my companion leads us past a gravestone poised dramatically on a cliff edge at a sharp corner of the trail.    “A man riding home drunk one night... he never made it,” my guide informs.  Awed by this image of the mountain taking the life of the drunken horseman I fall into silent reverence for the rest of the descent. These remote hills remain an untouched monument, a ghostly museum of the Taino race.  For us today it is peaceful - the pleasing whisper of the long grass and the hush of distant waterfalls desperately crashing to the valley floor.  But close your eyes and it is easy to see this place strike an eerie terror into the heart on a less welcoming day.                                                                                                    - Robert from the UK