[W]e had a few excursions up our sleeve on our visit to Punta Cana first being a dip in one of the 12 fresh water lagoons at the Ecological Reserve. It was the most crystal clear water I have ever seen, the perfect way to swim with little turtles and lazy fish.
Something I was very interested in learning about was Punta Cana’s Ecological Foundation and their Zero Waste movement. Here, they work on the island’s sustainability making programs to help protect and preserve the natural environment and resources and properly prepare the development of the Dominican Republic so things like the impact of tourism are managed and allowed to aid to keeping the environment and culture beautiful if not better. Here at the Ecological Reserve they keep iguanas, riding horses, work animals, farm animals, gardens, an earth worm farm (which eats the organic waste from restaurants and makes compost for the garden) and bee hives. When they wanted to start a bee colony they spoke to Mr. de la Renta about it and the first hive came from the porch of Oscar’s private home. When he visited the reserve this past year he saw how the program was going which not only pollinates the local fruits and vegetables but also creates honey which makes jobs for locals to harvest, package and sell and at the spa we visited they even use it for their facials which I loved! Anyway, it went on and on with amazing projects I found completely fascinating and something I hope can be an international example of how to start dealing with the human impact on our environment.
We bounced over the to Playa Blanca Beach Club where we did stand up paddle boarding and dined on local fare at the beach side restaurant there and tried to remember just which day of the week it was exactly…
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