Mike in the Wild

On my nature walk through the Damajagua Forest in the Dominican Republic, I wasn't surprised to see a wooden sign that said the forest supported more than 200 jobs. There had to be over a thousand tourists on the trail, nearly every one of them wearing a helmet, life preserver, and rubber water-shoes rented at the very busy visitor center at the trailhead.  In fact, many of the visitors were off of my own cruise ship, on a separate excursion described as "an adrenaline-filled adventure" on seven of the Damajagua River's waterfalls.  Whooping it up on a birding tour?  Fortunately I soon discovered that the noisy crowds belied the fact that the forest was home to an interesting variety of native flora and fauna.   Damajagua is more of a wide stream than a river, cascading down the forested southern slope of a verdant mountain range defining the  northern coast of the Dominican Republic.  The water apparently flows into the Rio Bajabonico which the guided...