Experience the best of Barahona

Barahona is the main town of the Dominican Republic's south-west, about 125 km west of Santo Domingo, where the dry slopes of the Sierra de Bahoruco fall to the Caribbean. The town has a seafront promenade, a small port and a busy market, and the province around it has some of the country's least developed coast. Larimar, a pale-blue gemstone found nowhere else in the world, is mined in the mountains of the province.

Lake Enriquillo, a salt lake below sea level and the largest lake in the Caribbean, lies inland, with American crocodiles on Isla Cabritos. On the coast, river-mouth beaches such as Los Patos, where a freshwater stream runs straight into the sea, sit among palms and rocks. The cool cloud forests of the Sierra de Bahoruco hold coffee farms and endemic birds, and the beaches of Pedernales lie further south-west.

Fresh fish, rice and beans, mashed plantain and goat stew are everyday dishes, and coffee grown in the Barahona highlands is a regional pride. The south is drier than the rest of the island, with sunny weather from December to April, while June to November is hotter, wetter and the hurricane season.