Skatepark

The single highest ranked attraction in the greater Punta Cana area is Hoyo Azul.

It is a stunning cenote, which is a natural deep sinkhole located inside the massive skate park facility down at Cap Cana.

And the ratings are great.

It rates a four point five out of five from over three thousand two hundred reviews and ranks first out of a hundred and one registered things to do in the area.

Base in Bavaro.

Do Macao surf lesson, which rates four point eight.

Split ages at Skate Park using that sixty-pound minimum as a guide.

Skip Kathmandu.

It is.

What I like about you too, though, is you ride skate parks.

I like skate parks.

And, and I don't, I don't think a lot of...

I could be wrong, but I don't think a lot of people in bike life even do any kind of tricks that, like you're doing.

Not too many.

Like, they don't really mess with the skate parks or come...

Like, they don't come off the ground much.

Oh, right.

I raced BMX, so I rode bikes before I rode scooters, but I raced them, and then so I got on, I had my rollerblades when I was eight years old, and then I was the only rollerblader at Skatepark.

No one was riding rollerblades.

I was just riding with the BMX riders and the scooter riders on my rollerblades, doing flips and stuff and spins, because I thought that that was what you'd do, because I'm an eight-year-old kid with no internet.

I know my dad was pushing him to get up to the finish line.

And so, you know, those are memories with Joe, who builds all of our skate parks.

He's the best, you know, one of the best builders in the world.

And he did my landscaping in the front.

I'm sorry, Rick Carge.

Oh, Carge did that? Rick Carge built all the skate parks.

And Rick did my front landscaping and my back landscaping.

And Joe, all of a sudden, I heard he was a landscaper too.

First is Jean-Christ Rasolofono Riraina, the president of the Govisa Govisa team and ambassador of the Grand Skate Board Tour and Madagascar Skater of the Year.

For over 16 years, he has been building the scene back home, mentoring young skaters, growing the community, and helping run local skate parks, including representing Madagascar at the Grand Skate Tour in Russia last year and the recent BRICS Skate Cup 2026.

Also, we have on the show, Gosay Jerral.

He has been skating for 21 years.

So these contests and, uh, competitions, skateboarding events, uh, they really, uh, give, first of all, they give, uh, exposure to the African skaters.

Because remember, uh, African, Af- African skateboarding, we got the worst infrastructures.

When you look at the skate parks, like we, we even have, uh, skaters coming from different African countries when they have never skated on a skate park.

They don't have a skate park.

... maybe they were-

There are a couple of great skate parks in New York City, and, uh, they have marvelous features that you can't have in the backyard.

You need it constructed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's skate parks, like, all over.

[laughs] Like, not just New York City, but, like, even in Lynchburg there's a skate park.

But it was five years after the park opened.

But then last time when I went to you with Achua, so story time is, I've always heard about the skate park, but I'd never seen the skate park.

So I said once, Achua, I'll come.

We'll come hang out.

Give us energy.

Oh, just think about what kind of background you want.

Skate park, what do you want? Skate park?

Skate park.

So throughout all the years, all the community supporters, all the members and so on have put it together.

We've completed projects like the Rotary Duck Pond, the Rotary Skateboard Park, the Rotary Republic Park of Manitoba.

For our 75th anniversary, as we announced back at our gala in, I guess it was May is when we had that, was a real cool legacy project.

So for anybody that maybe not be aware of it, it is called the Rotary Play Space.