• Today I was able to make a lifelong dream come true. I now have 6 acres of beautiful land in the mountains here in Domincan Republic, in a place called Arroyo el Dulce in Manabao. At 1,200 meters above sea level, it is a completely different climate zone from the coastal area where I live. Here the climate is temperate, with Pine forests and although it isnt cold enough for snow, we have lows of 4 and 5 celcius ( high 30's and low 40's) in winter, and becuase it is mountain climate , even the summers have cool evenings!. This makes it an ideal place to escape the terrible heat and humidity of Santo Domingo. But it is so much more than that. It is also a very natural place, the small dirt road that leads to it, ends a little further up from my property and from there on its just mountains and forest!! The best part is what my experience has been these past few days there with Ayo. Part of the reason I was so excited about this is that Ayo and Rosie will finally have a place where they can run around!! It was amazing to see him, I had no idea how he would act, but it was great he would go ahead and explore and wait for us to reach him ,It was awesome to see him, it felt so right, like he was in his element, where he was meant to be.. He would keep a lookout and it felt like he was guarding us!!! he would constantly check to see where we were and came back every time i called,…except once... Actually it was because of Ayo that we found the piece of land we ended up buying. We had walked up a trail looking at one property and i had set him loose, and he was responding perfectly, always on call. As we neared a small house i knew that there would be chickens and possibly other dogs so i started to call him back towards me but, the minute he saw the chickens he would not come back , he took one look at me and then ran towards the hens. AT that point a farmer came out with a stick to protect his hens!! I calmed him down and was able to stop Ayo , who by this point was more interested in the farmers bitch.. :-). We ended up having coffee with the man and his wife (coffee they grow themselves right there!!!) who told us they had some land they could sell us.. we went up to see it with them and , it was love at first site. We had been looking for land around there for months and had not quite found the right place, nor the right price. Long story short, I just bought it today!! Here are some pictures of the land and Ayo and Rosie.
    attachment_t_13932_0_nos-el-dulce.jpg
    attachment_t_13932_1_ayo-y-rosa.jpg
    attachment_t_13932_2_claudio-and-ingrid.jpg
    attachment_t_13932_3_ayo-el-dulce-p1.jpg
    attachment_t_13932_4_vista-dulce2-p1.jpg
    attachment_t_13932_5_ayo-el-dulce2-p.jpg


  • Oh, I so want to visit!!!
    congrats on your new place - looks lovely.


  • Thank you.. You are welcome!!!!

  • First Basenji's

    Congratulations! I know how you feel to see your Ayo and Rosie run free. To think of a Basenji in his native land, exploring etc allows you think of how you are able to give him what he loves to do! I trust in the dogs' natural instincts to be wary of danger such as with snakes. I have seen my dogs actually come up on one (I was able to keep calm because I recognized it as a non-viper) and when the snake coils up, the nose knows and they jump backwards like a spring! It is good to hear that you have about the best recall a B owner can have, and around distractions one can only expect less! At least he looked at you!!!! Beautiful surroundings!

  • First Basenji's

    Wow – that is a very lush, beautiful looking place! I love the story of how Ayo led you to it.
    Your dream is my dream too. Congratulations on having a little piece of sanctuary to call your own!


  • Congrats on your new home, it looks lovely.


  • Congratulations and what lovely pictures. Everything looks very beautiful and the dogs obviously love it.


  • Thank You, .. I am very excited. Cant wait to get started on this. I am now desigining a little cabin to put in it. It will be done little by little, because I dont have much left over after buying the land. First just one large room with a a bathroom and a fireplace… Here are a few more picures of the scenery.
    attachment_p_160948_0_1.jpg
    attachment_p_160948_1_2.jpg
    attachment_p_160948_2_3.jpg
    attachment_p_160948_3_4.jpg
    attachment_p_160948_4_5.jpg


  • Congrats! We built our cabin on my Husband's family homestead farm. Cricket loves to run free!
    We bought our cabin plans from: http://www.cabinplans123.com/cabinplans.php
    We got the C0432B 24' X 18' Cabin. The plans are very thorough and easy to understand.


  • Thanks a lot!! Very nice cabins!.. I am an architect and although I've designed my "dream" house about eight times already, now that I actually have to design my real house I can't seem to decide how to do it.. It so much easier to design other people's spaces!!!! Also the VERY limited budget makes it harder..


  • That looks incredible! Congrats.


  • What gorgeous property-I bet the Bs are loving it-all that land to run around on!

    Knipper, I like those cabin plans. Most have nice sized porches. I would like to have something like this when I retire-buy some land and have something like this built. My sister bought a cabin near a lake in Ohio and she did not have to pay much for it. This is her vacation home for the time being but I think she will retire there. I want to live in a warmer climate though and a state with less property taxes!

    Jennifer


  • More lovely pictures! You've got plenty of forest too. I look forward to seeing your plans especially to your own design.

Suggested Topics