My favorite type of scenery is without a doubt, the mountains. Don’t get me wrong, I love a beautiful beach every now and again, but the mountains are what really have my heart. Luckily for me, the beautiful country of Dominican Republic has both of those beauties! The area of the country that I stayed in specifically had a big mountain and other rolling hills with the ocean peeking through from the other side. It was breath taking! The pictures definitely do not do the view any justice. 

During my stay, we were so fortunate to have gotten the chance to visit 4 different beaches. Each beach was so uniquely different and because of that, there were certain aspects that I loved about each. One thing that 3 out of the 4 had in common, though, were the waves. Throughout my short 22 years of life, I’ve never experienced waves this big or this rough! It felt like we were being tossed around in a drying machine fighting to remember which way was up. But goodness it was fun! Some beaches had beautiful sand and you could walk forever, while others had a beautiful view. Some had cows and others had crabs. At the end of the day, the beach was the best way to cool of from a long day of working hard and playing with the kiddos. Plus, we got take selfies with cows, on a beach… with glowy sunset light. (insert heart-eye emoji here!!!)

One of my favorite parts of the trip was our hike up a mountain to not one, not two, but four different and perfectly unique waterfalls. That was quite a treacherous trek (at least in my book!) We had to rock climb up a wall, walk along slippery rocks next to a 10 ft drop into pools of water, walk up the waterfalls and down slippery, rocky and muddy slopes. I only took a tumble once but it was so worth it to be covered in dirt! 

On our last day of the trip, we drove to Jarabacoa, which is a city up in the mountains. There, we visited the Kids Alive International orphanage, and it is the happiest orphanage you’ll ever come across. We also took a mini hike to a waterfall and enjoyed the scenic views of the valley from the van. Unfortunately it was raining and foggy almost the whole day, but thankfully we still got to experience the love and beauty in such a joyful place.