The Southwest Coast Road: Barahona to Pedernales

Where the road starts: Barahona

Barahona functions as the northern anchor of this route, the region's largest town and the location of María Montez International Airport. It is where travellers arriving from Santo Domingo or by air typically join the coastal road heading south-west.

From Barahona, the road runs along the coast rather than cutting inland, keeping the Caribbean in view for much of its length as it passes toward Paraíso.

Paraíso and Los Patos

Paraíso is a coastal town along the route known for its beaches, including nearby Playa San Rafael, where a freshwater river meets the sea — a distinctive feature of this stretch of coast compared with purely saltwater beaches elsewhere in the country.

Los Patos, close by, is known similarly for a short freshwater river running directly into the Caribbean, a geological feature tied to the springs draining out of the Sierra de Bahoruco above.

Enriquillo and onward

Continuing south-west, the road passes through Enriquillo, another coastal community along the route, before the highway continues toward Pedernales, tracking the coastline for much of the remaining distance with the mountains inland.

This stretch of road is not a wide, high-speed highway comparable to routes near the capital; it is a coastal road serving communities directly along it, and conditions can vary with maintenance cycles and weather, as is typical of coastal roads in mountainous terrain.

The road's future role once CBJ opens

Once CBJ opens, this same coastal highway is expected to be the road that connects the airport site to Pedernales town and onward to the rest of the province, assuming a dedicated airport access road is built to link the site to the existing highway — a detail that has not been separately confirmed in public reporting.

In other words, the road you would use to reach Pedernales overland today is very likely the same road that will carry traffic to and from CBJ once it is operating, rather than a completely separate access corridor.

Questions we get on this

What is this road officially called?

It is commonly referred to as Route 44 or the Carretera Barahona–Pedernales, the coastal highway linking the two.

What towns does the road pass through?

Heading south-west from Barahona, it passes through Paraíso, Los Patos and Enriquillo before reaching Pedernales.

Will this road connect to CBJ once it opens?

It is expected to, assuming a dedicated access road links the airport site to this existing highway, though that link has not been separately confirmed.