El Limon waterfall half day trip
When you are staying on the peninsula Samana on the Dominican Republic, there is a half day tour which can do on your own. Most tour agents offer an ATV tour to Salto Limon waterfalls. The tour would cost approximately $40 and takes about 4-5 hours. This includes a horseback ride to take you to the top of the waterfall. You need to walk down from the restaurant on top of the hill for about 10 minutes.
El Limon waterfall tour
Of course it would be fun driving with an ATV to the waterfalls, but to safe money you can take easily public transport. In Las Terrenas you’ll find a guagua bus stop in front of Casa Linda. A guagua is a minibus which takes up to 12 passengers. From Las Terrenas it’s about half an hour drive to El Limon. From the bus stop it took us about 10 minutes to walk to the entrance.
The beginning of the hike
At the entrance of the waterfall you can either rent a horse and they will take you in a half an hour to the restaurant close to the waterfall. Horses cannot go down, so you’ll need to walk for about 10 minutes down stairs.
Or you can go walking. This is the option we took. The entrance fee is 50 DOP each. And from the entrance it took is 45 minutes to get to the restaurant. The walk is going uphill most of the time and when it has rained or is raining the route will be muddy and slippery. So be careful!
Hiking to a waterfall
Very soon after we started we needed to wade trough the river. So we took off our shoes and carefully we crossed on our bare feet. Taking our shoes back on we didn’t know we had to cross 2 more times soon after and one more time at the waterfall! So make sure you’ll take some sandals or flip flops, as there are sharp stones at the bottom of the river. Crossing the river was actually fun, but bare feet it was a little painful.
The scenery was lush and green and I enjoyed the hiking.
On top of the hill there is a restaurant with a scenic view over El Limon waterfall.
From this point it’s about 10 minutes to walk down, which is mostly stairs.
Small waterfall
There was a small waterfall when we got down, here we needed to cross the river again. People were swimming at this waterfall and after we got sweaty from the hiking it looked very appealing!
From this point it was a little walk uphill. The waterfall is about 40 meters high. Depending on the season the waterfall can be smaller. At the bottom of the waterfall we took a little refreshing swim. The was a little cold. It was busy, but not many people went in the water.
Pina Colada!
After the swim we earned our Pina Colada, which is served in a fresh pineapple and tasted so good!
The way back was easier as we walk most of the route downhill.
Information
Cost
Guagua: 200 DOP
Entrance fee: 50 DOP
Drink at the restaurant: 250 DOP
Total cost is 10 dollars, which saved us 30 dollars today instead of taking the tour!
Time:
This half day DIY tour took us about 5,5 hours, we didn’t rush, took our time to enjoy our Pina Colada and we needed to wait a bit for a guagua to take us back to Las Terrenas. Start early to avoid the crowds.
Do you know there are more activities to do at Samana peninsula? Go whale watching from January until March!