Indigenous Eyes Ecological Reserve

Locally rich, calm paced excursion. We booked via the website and it was about $90 a person. They are time slotted so make sure to buy in advance. It included transport, animal visits, informational aspects, a great guide and two lagoons. It was about 2 hrs with some walking at the pace you set. If you want to experience the country without too complicated of an excursion this is for you. It’s about 20 minutes into Punta Cana, located by a resort. Would be good for kids, and the elderly in my group enjoyed it. The trails are easy to manage.

What an amazing and tranquil place! One thing lets it down and that’s price. It’s so over priced it’s unreal and if I hadn’t driven 90mins to get there I probably would’ve have paid. It’s $90 each to get in and you’re only allowed to swim in one pool (not sure how they’d police that but apparently that’s the rules). Also you need to make a reservation ahead of time. That being said we explained to the reception that we had been trying to book online and the website wasn’t working and they pulled some strings to get us in. So that’s the bad out the way. The place is stunning!!! So much nature to see and soak up!!! The cenotes are like something from a fairytale. Crystal clear waters and in most pools you will see a variety of fish and turtles that you can swim with. It’s natural so goes without saying there will be rocks. We wore swim shoes which were perfect. The pools are deep so if you’re not a confident swimmer you may want to stay near the stairs. If you are visiting Punta Cana a lot of excursions include access to this so do your research and could save yourself some $$.

What a BEAUTIFUL cenote! It's a 15 min walk through a jungle from the entrance to reach this fairytale-like swimming hole. It is deep- so bring a floaty if you're not a strong swimmer/floater. The edges have stand-able areas, but it's rocky! I wore swimming shoes and had no issues walking the terrain to get there. Definitely worth the trip!

Great place to visit although extremely hard to find the reservation. I would have rated it a five but directions to get there are confusing. Once there, if you find it, it is gorgeous. Bring your bathing suit, towel and bottle of water. It is an easy trail to walk, and a great place admire beautiful water holes (lagunas) and tropical vegetation. If you are lucky and you don’t find crowds it is a great place to meditate and look at turtles and fish. It is very well kept although an $40 dollars per person entrance fee is an steep price to pay. Try to buy a weekly pass or other cheaper alternatives since you don’t need a guide. You need to make a reservation because there is a set schedule and I assume to control crowds.

This is an amazing natural treasure. A nice walk through nature and then this beautiful ponds to take a great swim. Water feels great! Definitely a must.

Great place! Nature as good as it gets

3 stars only because of how hard this information was to find. We could not figure out if it was possible to visit here without an $80 guided tour ($40 if you stay with specific hotels) and eventually we did find we could walk the grounds of the park for $10 per person for a day pass or $20 for a week long pass! The tour price was prohibitive for us so we were very excited when we learned out the $10 passes. I also posted a picture of the pricing because they may be different if you are not staying within the Puntacana Resorts area. Possible $50. We told them we were staying at Tortuga Bay and they didn’t verify. The fact we got around by golf cart made it obvious we were from the resorts area. You must buy tickets at the main store (see pictures). If you are driving from the east, there will be signs on the road for the main building of which is blue and red (but you can’t see from the main building from the road FYI). The location is called Fundación Grupo Puntacana on Google maps. Walk in the front door and then go left a bit to a small store at the end of the hall. Card and cash are both accepted. We were given yellow wrist bands for a 1 day pass and pink bands for the week. Then get back in the car or golf cart and turn right on to the main road. About 2 min farther down is the main entrance to the walking paths with the pools you can swim in. In Google maps, this entrance is called Indigenous Eyes Ecological Reserve (Reserva Ecológica Ojos Indígenas). The entrance is marked by the large indigenous wooden figure, that forms a gate. Sometimes someone is staffing the gate where you should check in but other times we just walked in. They ask you write your name down and take a picture of the map so you know where you are going. Between 10am-12pm we noticed lots of tour groups go through from many different companies so swim holes may be a bit busy. Last entry is at 3:15pm. (It says 3:30pm on the sign but they told us 3:15pm.) One more note, the map at the main building (last picture) is obviously not to scale and extremely hard to follow. I wouldn’t recommend trying to follow it at all. The lagoon map is pretty helpful though. The trails are lovely and shady and swimming in the lagoons is wonderful! If you are calm and not swimming, you will possibly see turtles and lots of fish.

I had the time of my life here. Free entry if staying within Punta Cana resort and club. Beautiful waters, plenty of space to explore, and the walking was all fairly flat, which was important as my grandparents do not walk well. Lots of turtles and fish, butterflies, birds, and one large iguana! My family and I spent over 3.5 hours swimming and exploring. Truly beautiful