Escaping the boundaries of tourism is something I love to do when exploring an area that is new to me. I love the local stuff, the rarely visited stuff, the hidden stuff. I have learned that connecting with a local guide or porter is your best bet to finding the roads less traveled!

I was introduced to Yorkis Medina through a colleague and with a lot of help with Google Translate, were able to settle on a route and itinerary which included important historical sites that I needed to investigate.

Our expedition started a little later in the day with our first stop at a Haitian settlement just outside of La Otra Banda soaked up the local cuisine and practicing our Creole French and English with the locals.

Passing through Otra Banda proper, the automobile and motorbike congestion and general chaos, and lack of traffic laws were pure excitement. Yorkis pulled off the road and spoke with a street vendor selling very hot VERY tasty salted steamed corn on the cob. We both snatched one up and dug in.

The next stop was the city of Higüey, or its proper name “Salvaleón de Higüey”. This is the home city of Yorkis, my porter-guide. Higüey has a tourist city population ~23,000. Visitors staying at the resorts in Punta Cana often make this trip to get a taste of local life in the Dominican Republic.

We continued due south. We had made special arrangements ahead of time to have someone meet us at Casa de Ponce De Leon just north of San Rafael de Yuma the historical landmark was not open to the public due to a COVID policy change for non-essential businesses. The two-story home is quite large, much larger than I had envisioned. The walls are roughly 3 feet thick with a Spanish-style tile roof. Fantastic for keeping the interior climate nice and steady. The structure is not a perfect cube in design, but the narrower base widens as your eye moves up the edges to the eaves.

The home is built covering a creek and converted to an underground tunnel that leads to Rio Yuma, a nearby larger river, for the purpose of escaping possible attacks of native people. Early on the Spanish settlers had a rough time!

As you approach the large carriage house doors, the only outside doors, you are greeted by a spacious entrance with a staircase and cabinets containing artifacts from the time of Juan Ponce de Leon’s time there. Including portions of his armor.

The furniture and decorations were all original to the home. One piece, a secretary, was very ornate and begged the question of the docent, “Are there any hidden drawers?” To my surprise, he answered “Si!” and began opening drawers and rotating the ornamentations which triggered a spring-loaded undetectable hidden drawer to release with a forceful ejection!

While I was enjoying this very important historical location, known for one of the most well noted Explorers, Yorkis was having his own moment. It turns out he had never been to this historic cultural site all while living only 20 minutes away. He was absolutely stunned at his own education and discovery this day. He commented that he would bring his family the following weekend to visit.

Together we enjoyed the cacophony of sights, flavors, and sounds while driving through the countryside of the Dominican Republic. Many months later, Yorkis and I keep in touch via texting and share family photos, and talk about his hopeful trip to Texas.

The biggest discovery of this expedition was Yorkis Medina.