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Introduction
Jess and I climbed on December 28-29, 2019, during Dominican Republic dry season. We had mostly good weather. It wasn't too hot, nor too cold. Take good clothing for the summit attempt at sunrise.
Approach
We landed in Santiago De Los Caballeros, took a taxi to Jarabacoa, we paid US$30. We stayed the night at a small hotel in Jarabacoa. The hotel proposed an agent. The agent was asking US$200/person for a guide and 2 mules. We thought we would be better off going to the trailhead and find the mandatory guide ourselves. The next morning we woke up at 6am and took a taxi to the Park Visitor Center at La Cenaga. A guide was waiting for us there, the agent had notified him of our arrival. The guide asked only 5000 DOP (~US$100) to accompany us, including 2 mules, and we gave him a 500 DOP tip at the end of our trek. We went shopping for food at a tiny local shop, we spent around 500 DOP to feed the 3 of us for 2 days. We also paid the park entrance fee at the visitor center: 150 DOP per person. We rented 2 sleeping bags at the visitor center for 200 DOP each. Big mistake, we should have rented inflatable matresses as well!! We saved almost US$300 by going to the trailhead ourselves :-)
Hike
We gave most of our stuff to the mule, the other mule was for the guide ;-) We hiked 17.5km the first day to the cabins at La Comparticion. The guide cooked dinner for us, and we went to bed early. Having only a sleeping bag, on the wooden floor of the cabin, I couldn't sleep at all... It was a terrible night. Bring a mattress, and earplugs. There was around 15 people in the cabin that night. There were no rats and it was pretty clean, unlike what I had read on some blogs.
We started hiking at around 4:30am the next day and reached the summit at 6:22am for the sunrise, after a 6km hike. We then hiked all the way back down to La Cienaga (~24km), found someone to bring us back to Jarabacoa for $20, and slept the night at the same hotel we stayed at 2 days prior in Jarabacoa.
Hope it helps!