Riding Dirty: Motos to La Isabela + Punta Rucia

(Luperón, Dominican Republic)

The other day, we ventured out with our new friends Chloe and Stefan from >>Sea Rah<< to tour the Dominican countryside. By moto.

Motos are basically just motorcycles. That are manual. NOT automatic. Which is a super complex brain teaser of gear shifting if you ask me. Unlike the easy automatic scooter we used to own back in Naples where all you needed was your hands to drive, with a moto, both hands AND both feet are in constant use in order to accelerate, brake, and shift gears.

I’m pretty sure in the U.S. they make you take like a special rider course or something to legally operate a motorcycle. But hell, in the DR, they just let you hop on anything.

Luckily, Jereme figured out how to drive that thing in 2.5 seconds. I, on the other hand, would still be sitting out front of the guy’s house we rented it from trying to figure out how to shift that darn thing.

We left Luperón on our fancy moto and headed west.

We drove along the winding Dominican countryside just soaking it all in. With the wind in our hair and sun on our faces, we drove across gravel roads, alongside fields of sugar cane and banana trees, past herds of cows and men on donkeys, and through tiny town after tiny town. It was beautiful. It’s hard to even attempt to string together the right words to explain the experience and the sights.

There’s nothing like driving a motorcycle down a barely-there bumpy gravel dirt road and ending up at the base of a river where you can either drive across it on your bike or turn around altogether (we crossed it of course). And then randomly stumbling upon a small village’s baseball game on a field that looks like it should’ve come straight out of the movie Field of Dreams.

I could never have dreamt up these experiences in my wildest dreams.

After driving for about 40 minutes, we first stopped in La Isabela. Another adorable little town situated right on the northern coast of the DR. We pulled our bikes up to a beach shack and hopped off to grab a cold drink and bite to eat.

Side note, we ordered a full pizza and it arrived with two slices missing. Is that customary? Lol. I kinda think someone in the back got hungry.

Anyhoo, we enjoyed lounging beachside for a bit and then hopped back on our bike to head further west towards Punta Rucia.

The second leg of our moto tour was a bit longer and more intense. Driving mostly on gravel roads can take it’s toll on your tush after a few hours. But we sucked it up because the drive continued to be insanely gorgeous.

Our stop at the beach in Punta Rucia was cut a little short as the sun was quickly on the decline and we all definitely wanted to make it back to Luperón before dark. We had a quick drink in Punta Rucia and then headed back, but not before stopping for another butt break (as I like to call it) and some delicious ice cream treats at a roadside market on the way.

What a day!

We made it back to Luperón with sore tushies and barely any light left in the day…and immediately crashed back at our boat.

Here’s a quick little GoPro video of some highlights from our day cruising the DR countryside…

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