Despite being kept awake by noisy neighbours late into the night, David felt well enough to take a trip to Ojos de Agua today. After some banana pancakes, we headed for the bus stop. We could have rented bikes and arranged transport for about 900 cordobas but we decided to be a bit more adventurous and take the chicken bus. The schedules can't be guaranteed but we thought we should experience an old yellow, American school bus crawling and bouncing along the rugged unsealed road. It also saved us a fortune, the fare was 15 cordobas each for the one way trip.

The bus arrived within 5 minutes of it's scheduled time but that's maybe because it started it's day a few hundred meters up the road. After an hour of being bounced up and down and swung from left to right as the bus weaved it's way through rocks and ruts of the 'road' we hopped out onto the roadside.

We walked 500m up a dead straight track lined with the most enormous mango trees and reached Ojos de Agua. We paid the small 70 cordobas entrance fee (about 2 euros) and walked through to the swimming hole. We were one of the first to arrive so had the pick of seats around the pool. The pool itself had crystal clear water that was about 27c and was surrounded by big leafy trees. The water came from mineral/thermal spring (except for not sure hot spring) and was supposed to have rejuvenating qualities.

David was still struggling a bit and was just enjoying the comfy chairs for a bit of reading & lot of dozing. Maria was keeping herself entertained, reading, swimming and photographing the howler monkeys that came swinging through the trees.

We had been told about Ojos de Agua's Coco Loco drink and decided we couldn't leave without trying one. The juice from a coconut was shaken with light and dark rum, sugar syrup and a bit of crushed ice before going back into the coconut as the serving vessel. Delicious!!

We took the risk on riding the last bus of the day home, it was supposed to be guaranteed whereas the others through the day were not. In our haste to make sure we weren't late, we were at the main road 20 minutes early so we decided to walk 1.5km to the Santo Domingo village knowing we could flag the bus down if it came past. It didn't...we stopped to take photos of a water melon farm, stopped and watched while bulls were being herded down the main road and bought some stuff from the store in Santa Domingo. Just as we came out the store, the bus came round the corner and we stuck our arms out and just to make sure, David put his out again but the bus just dropped a gear and drove past us!! Then it finally stopped and the back door opened...it was so full we had to squeeze in the back but we made it back to Hacienda Merida.