TRES OJOS y EL PALACIO NATIONAL

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TRES OJOS

Comparatively speaking this was not a real busy week.  We took a little break and visited TRES OJOS and EL PALACIO NACIONAL

Quoting Wikipedia:  “Los Tres Ojos (The Three Eyes in English) is the name given to a 50-foot open-air limestone cave located in the Mirador del Este park, in the Santo Domingo Este.”  (It is about 10 minutes from our home in SD).   It is a series of three lakes, or ojos.

                                                                          Can you see the hand at the bottom?

Wikipedia: “The site was created centuries ago as a result of tectonic fractures when underground caves collapsed, forming a bowl-shaped depression which subsequently filled with water.   Initially, the cave was inhabited by the indigenous Taino Indians who were the first inhabitants of the Hispaniola island. The three lakes are called "Aguas Azufradas" (discovered in 1916), "The Nevera" and "El Lago de las Mujeres".   A staircase cut into the rock gives access to the first cave. A boat pulls visitors across the second lake.”  (They pull you across for free, but they charge $25 RD (25 pesos) to get out of the boat when you come back.)

“The two ponds are respectively made of sulphurous water and salt water, while the large lake is composed of freshwater. Their temperature varies between 20°C to 29°C.  The fauna is also very varied and includes fish, bats and turtles. Surrounding vegetation is lush and abundant. The depth of the lake remains unknown. The lakes formed a backdrop to some scenes from the movie Jurassic Park.

EL PALACIO NACIONAL

We had the rare opportunity to tour the National Palace with a lot of the other missionaries.  Here are few pictures.

FOOD PROJECT

Wallace spent some time putting together a garden box which he plans to put in the front patio area.  We are assigned to start a Food Initiative Project in the Dominican Republic.  We were instructed to start with gardens and maybe later we will do chickens.  We have had some productive meetings with small branches where we introduced the project, but nothing has really developed yet.  You will probably be hearing some about this in the future.