Iguana Mama - Mountain Biking, Hiking & Ecological Adventures

Dizzied by buzzing motoconchos, chickenhoppers, German windsurfers and a whopping case of vacation vertigo, our touring editor falls into an unspoiled mountain biking Mecca in - surprise! - the tropical Caribbean.

The burro looks utterly bored, but its young rider can't take his eyes off my bike. "Gringo?" he asks.

"Uh, yes, si. Estoy de los Estados Unidos," I say, flinching at my pitiful high-school spanish.

The boy, wearing a dusty smile and oversize gunmetal-gray Dickies, shakes his head and clicks his tongue. He glances up at the straight, steep mountain road from which he has just descended. It looks like a narrow plank leaning against a flat green wall.

"No comprendo," says the boy. The burro shifts its weight from hip to hip, knocking the boy off balance. He leans forward and casually smacks the burrow between the ears.

The boy jiggles his crotch and mutters something. Maximo bursts out laughing. "El chico, he say we ride bike up mountain, then we break something very valuable."

Maximo translates, and the boy utters something else. Maximo laughs again. "El chico, he say, ÎTell that to your bike.'" Then Maximo pedals off. The rest of the group is nowhere is sight behind us, so I clip in and follow.

The dry, rutted dirt road tilts up in front of me, points to the sky like a pale arm, then drops out of sight - a distant promise of the incredible downhill action I've been told to expect in the Dominican Republic. The grade turns from taxing to brutal to something beyond, and my standard hill-climbing mantra switches on automatically: "I. Will. Not. Walk. This. Stu. Pid. Bike." Each syllable is tied to my weakening pedal strokes. "I. Will. Not. Walk. This. Stu. Pid. Bike."

A faint, high-pitched whine begins to vibrate in my ears. I hide behind my sunglasses, trying to ignore the children on their way home from school. As I inch past they scuttle to the right, pointing, calling out "Que gringo!" and laughing at my grunts and groans.

Maximo has long since vanished when I raise my head to look for him. At the crest some 200 feet away - an infinity - stands an old man with a straw hat, a cane, and a Philadelphia Eagles T-shirt. He is doing the tennis-game shuffle, first looking at me, then looking out of sight over the crest, then at me, then back over the crest. In my near-dementia I expect to hear the thok of a Becker serve.

Instead the whining in my ears gets louder. I shake my head to clear the noise but that just knocks my line out of whack. Mere feet from the summit, my rented Kona veers across the road and dives into weeds.

None too soon. As the whine reaches an irritating crescendo, a sweaty young man in a jean jacket pops over the crest on a dusty pink moped that whines and coughs black smoke. He cuts the engine and coasts down in the direction I've just come.

I'm not surprised to see a moped up here in the mountains, miles from the nearest paved road. It's one of the 2-wheel taxis called motoconchos that buzz like gnats along the main roads and dirt backways of the Dominican Republic, hauling people (and cargo) for a few pesos. I'm not even surprised by the passenger, a stout woman in a peach-colored dress and white pumps, utterly untouched by dust, perched sidesaddle with her buttocks hanging half off the back of the cracked leather seat.

What grabs my attention is the Î70s-era, avocado-green, apartment-size washing machine wedged between her and the driver, who, to make room, sits high on the gas tank with his pelvis jammed against the speedometer. He looks unhappy, but then again, he hadn't refused the fare, either. What's a little inconvenience when you've got a business to run?

I straddle the top tube and gape over my shoulder as the moped weaves down the mountain, fading to a pastel point. The old man startles me by clapping his gnarled hands together and launching into a stream of dialect too fast for me to process. Something about the gringo crashing into the motoconcho. He grabs my shoulder and points at the front tire. Something about falling. I follow the line of his nut-brown arm. Another 6 inches and this gringo would have tumbled right off the edge of a cliff.

The Caribbean seldom surfaces in conversations about great places to mountain bike. Tiny, laid-back islands (when they're not being ravaged by hurricanes), humid beaches, tourist-crowded cities - not the sort of image that connotes the escape to nature expected from an off-road vacation. But the Dominican Republic, with its towering mountains and uncounted miles of dirt road and singletrack, defies all such stereotypes.

Occupying the eastern two thirds of the island of Hispaniola, roughly the area of New Hampshire and Vermont, the DR is home to both the highest point in the Caribbean (Pico Duarte, 10,417 feet) and the lowest (Lake Enriquillo, 144 feet below sea level), as well as 17 well-protected national parks - in which mountain biking is perfectly legal, if you have the right permits.

I was fortunate to hook up with Tricia Thorndike, owner of Iguana Mama Mountain Bike Tours and resident expatriate mountain biking expert. Tricia sold her lucrative children's ski school in Breckinridge, Colorado, to start an ecotourism company in the northern Dominican beach town of Cabarete. She chose well.

"I've been here for three-and-a-half years and we've just begun to tap the riding possibilities," says Thorndike. "Nobody has really looked at this place with an eye for mountain bike touring before. We go out for days scouting new places to ride."

We averaged 20 miles a day on out-and-back rides, with the notable exception of an overnight camping trip in Armando Bermudez National Park, home of Pico Duarte. To get there - a remote destination even for a country filled with remote destinations - we pedaled 18 miles to the jump-off town of Boca de Rio (a handful of huts and a store that sells rum, beer, and Coke). There we stashed our bikes and, with the help of a guide and a couple of burros, hiked 5 or 6 miles into the park and spent the night in a large mountaineering cabin, snug in a cool, misty valley. Thorndike and crew are also researching a trek where the bikes are carried by mules for 7 hours into a lush remote crisscrossed by virgin singletrack - "virgin" meaning no bikes have ever ridden there. "Just donkeys so far," she says. "The logistics are a nightmare, but this is the kind of thing I love to do."

Nightmare indeed. The untouched quality of the country correspondingly makes it muy dificil to explore the DR unassisted, unless you can afford to spend more that a week in the country. Many of the local people, especially those living in el campo (the boondocks) still view mountain bikers as visitors from a strange planet. "We found out early on that if we simply asked the local people, ÎWhat are the best trails to ride?' they'd look at us like we were insane," says Thorndike. "To them, the best trails are paved roads." With only a week to ride, I tagged along on a few Iguana Mama tours - and considering the fact that this is the only bike touring company operating in the DR, you should do the same to get you bearings before heading out solo.

The second-best thing about the beach town of Cabarete - besides its proximity to outrageous, virtually undiscovered riding - is the abundance of good, cheap food and good, cheap lodging. Cabarete is a windsurfing mecca for Germans and French Canadians, for who airfare is especially cheap. (You can't even pop a wheelie without running down a windsurfer.)

Must-visit restaurants include Blue Moon, Chez Cabarete, El Molino, and Loley's. Expect to pay less than $5 a meal most places. And when it comes time to lay your sleepy head to rest, try (in order from budget to luxury) the Banana Boat Hotel, the Cabarete Beach Hotel, the Nanny Estates Condos, or the Palm Beach Condos.

Bone up on your Spanish, too. In towns like Cabarete, Sosua, and Puerto Plata, it's easy to find someone who speaks German, French Canadian or English (or all 3), but ride into el campo and it's dialectical Spanish all the way. (Be aware that Dominicans drop, or rather swallow, the letter S from the middle and end of many words. Bueno dias and como esta usted, for example, become bueno dia and como ta uted.)

When you see the incredible mishmash of traffic on the main 2-lane east-west road - a zoo of motoconchos, guaguas (minivan taxis packed to the ceiling with passengers), pedestrians, horses, burros, Japanese-made pickup trucks, semitrailers, and the occasional German car - you may be too intimidated to ride your bike all the same route. But perhaps because motoconchos are so prevalent, I never got "buzzed" by a driver, and no one ever yelled obscenities (none that I understood). That said, I still did most of my intensity travel by motoconcho, spending about 5 pesos (less than 50 cents) a ride, saving my nerves, possibly my life; and boosting the grass routes economy.

"What's with the goats and donkeys?" I asked Canadian Mike Campbell, former publisher of a windsurfing magazine, as we unloaded the bikes for the first ride of the week. Donkeys, goats, and sheep were tied every 200 feet or so all along the road for miles.

"That's the public works system," Mike said. "There's very little pasture, so people tie their livestock to fences and let them graze. It keeps down the undergrowth and feeds the animals, too."

We were just about to start the day's ride, a 25-mile run, nearly all downhill, half paved road and half doubletrack - but right now I was curious about the animals. "But don't they ever get loose?" I asked. "I mean, don't they get hit by cars?"

Earlier that morning, after loading the bikes onto a trailer down in Cabarete, 8 of us had dripped sweat on each other in the truck while Estephan, the driver, hauled us up the mountain to our starting point. As elevation increased, the palm trees, ferns, and wild, rubbery undergrowth of the lowlands gave way to pine trees, shrubs, and cooler temperatures.

I was antsy to start, so while the others fiddle with gloves and helmets and water bottles, I saddled up and climbed a riser at the side of the road. At the top I balanced on the bike, holding onto one of the living fences that are ever-present on this island.

"You are definitely not in Pennsylvania anymore," I muttered to myself, flabbergasted by the view. The slope plunged giddily into a deep, verdant valley bisected far below by a silver thread - the river we'd swim in later. The land canted up and down haphazardly on its way to the azure sea, distant but clearly visible from here. I could imagine some giant kicking off his heavy green blanket, leaving it bunched at the foot of a great bed lined with rumpled blue sheets. Tiny villages winked in the tropical sun, nestled among the blanket folds like loose change.

"That's what all these fences are made of. Dominicans cut the branches off a full grown pinon tree and use them as fence posts. The branches take root and grow again. If you need another fence, just strip a tree and start over. Another great system."

The thought of riding downhill on the road didn't thrill me much. After all, I'd come here to find great off-road action, not to pussyfoot on pavement. It took all of 5 minutes to change my mind.

Tiny, 2-room houses, constructed of clapboard or cinder block depending on the age, lined the road. Dominicans often paint their homes in the most vivid and audacious colors imaginable: pink, magenta, purple, kelly green, and any striped combination in between. Some residents coat their houses in blue or red, the colors of the most prominent political parties.

This ride is an Iguana Mama favorite, so the people who live along the steep, swooping road have seen plenty of mountain bikers come streaming by. The adults merely nodded or ignored us altogether. We turistas, however, shared the same enthusiasm as the children, who jumped up and down, holding out their hands for a fast-moving and occasionally painful high-5. Culture-shocked into crazy smiles, we shouted, "Hola!" to everyone as we sped through a windswept tunnel formed by houses, trees, children, donkeys, road, and sky.

Mike pulled up next to me, the treads on his knobby tires humming. "See those little roadside stands?"

Ahead of us, ride leader Alex Martinez pulled off onto a dirt side road. He adjusted his helmet, smiling mischievously at me. "You write for the magazine. You write about this!" He bolted down the steep, rutted doubletrack, flowing like quicksilver over the brutal terrain. We took off after him, laughing with the danger of riding breakneck down unfamiliar territory.

The front riders had already crossed the mud puddle by the time I rounded the corner, so the right line to take was a mystery. I decided arbitrarily to plow through the middle - and immediately the front tire augured in with a spurt. For a split second I balanced on one wheel like a circus bear on a unicycle.

My next coherent thought was, "Dominican mud tastes a lot worse than American mud." I lurched to my feet, arms spread wide, sputtering, mucked from head to toe, and the stench hit me like a fist. What looked like innocent mud was actually manure run-off from the cattle field adjacent to the trail.

Mike shook his head. "The river's right around the next bend," he said. I ran ahead and plunged in, bike and all, flailing like a man possessed. When I resurfaced, everyone was suspiciously shaking and covering their mouths.

The German windsurfer crouched at the side of the rocky red trail, changing a tube, surrounded by silent, blushing children. The rest of us had gathering in a tight bunch near a small shack that was shaking with the force of canned merengue music. A Dominican man, bent at the waist, clutched a red rooster. In front of him stood an agitated black rooster, bobbing a weaving like a feathered boxer, its tail spread like a dustcatcher. Using the red one as bait, the man poked and prodded at the black rooster, enticing it to attack.

"Cock fights very big here," said Alex. "Una gallera (cockfight arena) in every town. They bet much money." He pointed to the man waving the red rooster around. "He practice, make the black one angry so he don't lose next fight."

I shook my head and Alex took it for disbelief. "It's true! Look at the legs. Not feathers, see? They shave them off, tie on sharp spurs. Very mean fight." He yelled to be heard over the merengue, "No more flat. Let's go!"

We headed up the trail again, bobbing and weaving around the red rocks, straining against a slow but relentless climb. The Iguana Mamas call this ride "Rocky MF" (you figure it out) in honor of the fist-size, blocky stones that stick out of the earth like exposed vertebrae. Alex and a few more German windsurfers who had ridden this route before cleaned most of it, but I stumbled and grumbled, walking the bike half the time.

Soon we spun over the top and plummeted through a wide, tilted, open field covered with yellow flowers. I let my momentum carry me to the head of the line, just behind Alex, and that's when I saw an amazing display of mountain bike handling.

With a rousing bokbokbok! a chicken dashed from behind a fence in front of Alex. Without swerving left of right - almost as if he'd practiced this move earlier with the chicken - Alex bunnyhopped (chickenhopped?) over the bird and landed smoothly several feet beyond. He looked quickly over his shoulder and flashed me a smile. "For the magazine, no?" he said.

The track led us to a fence encircling a tee-covered grotto. Chantal Dionne, a French Canadian who competes in the women's Dominican MTB circuit when she isn't working as a ride guide for Iguana Mama, pulled up next to me as we stopped. "This is the big, eh, how you say, cave where we swim," she said.

Alex called out, "Here!" We followed him to a place where several boulders had shifted, leaving a large gap under the fence. After climbing through and sliding down a short slope, we came upon a dark cave mouth about 20-feet high. Water lapped at the edge and cool air rushed out.

"The last one in is the last one in!" cried Chantal, leaping into the water. She popped up, screaming. "Come on you big wimps! This water is so damn cold!"

I peeled off my shirt and dived in, shoes and all. Alex cannonballed in, too, and swam to the back where, at the outer reaches of the light, the cave narrowed to a low tunnel. "We swim very far back as children," he said. "Too far and too dark for me now!" He grabbed at the cave wall and climbed about 15 feet using only his hands, then slipped and fell back in again. I held the cave wall, too, but only for support, my feet unsteady on a slippery rock ledge, the frigid water beating at my skin. Something rattled its chains in the back of my mind.

Chantal grabbed my leg and dragged my under. When I surfaced, gasping, gulping the clear water, Chantal cried, "This is the place to be because we are here now!"

With the whining moped now far below me, I wheel my bike away from the edge of the precipice as the group catches up with me. The old man in the Eagles shirt, perhaps disappointed that I hadn't rolled over the edge, ambles on his way and never looks back.

"Oh, yeah, fine," I bluff. "Just taking in the view." Here, deep in the rural farmland, every inch of the surprisingly fertile land is turned over to crops. A few stately, round-headed trees follow each other across the undulating hilltops like refugees from Dr. Seuss' The Lorax. We watch as the stronger riders far ahead of us make their way towards the riverside rest stop, alternately appearing and disappearing as the snaking road winds around the folded hillside.

Alex points up the slope that towers over us. We watch 4 farmers, mere ants in the distance, zealously till a plot of earth so steep it's almost vertical. "The farmers, they have only leg shorter than the other leg, so they do not fall off the mountain," he says. "You believe?" I laugh, but with the vertigo still swimming in my guts, I believe, too.

Vertigo. It's a Spanish-sounding word that could have been coined for the Dominican mountain biking experience. I can't count the number of times the elevator plummeted down my esophagus and lurched to a stop in my stomach: Cruising around a corner and watching the great green world drop like a paperweight into a long, narrow valley. Or emerging from a cool ride beneath a canopy of trees to see a giant mountain pyramid block my view of the sky. Or, as now, perching at the top of a screaming downhill like the first car of a roller coaster, the clackclackclack of the climb a distant memory.

Giddy with speed, I float down the slope, hopping left and right over ruts in the road, plowing through mountain runoff streams, spraying warm rooster tails on either side of my bike. The sound of water flashes me back to the hidden cave pool. As water coats my legs and runs into my shoes, some forgotten cell door flies open, some rusted hinge works loose. I pull over to the side of the road and let the bike fall to the grass. Aquamarine houses blur into a whirlpool of color. Merengue music splashes the air. A child laughs, and the sun traces a golden line through the heavy Caribbean clouds.