Somoto Canyon

Once again, we are slacking on updating our blog. But one day we´ll get completely caught up... hopefully before we make it back to S.D.!

Sooo... where was I in my last post? Hmmmm... Oh, yes, Our crazy night in Esteli and on to Somoto...

From Esteli we were heading to the farther north-west part of Nicaragua to a tiny town called Somoto, which is famed for the large canyon outside the town. Apparently the canyon wasn´t discovered by outsiders until 2004. Crazy! Now it´s a big attraction for visitors. People generally day trip from Esteli to take a 3 or 4 hour trek, swim, cliff jump, and take a lancha tour of the canyon. We opted to spend a few nights in the town, to get a better feel for the area.

We caught a midmorning bus from Esteli and made it to Somoto before 3 p.m. We were totally spent after our late night and just wanted to find a nice place to lie our heads. We found a cute and rustic family run hotel, grabbed a bite to eat, and then hunkered down for some dubbed tv and a early night sleep. We had set up a canyon tour for the following morning and wanted to be well rested.

We were picked up at our hotel the next morning at the very reasonable hour of 8:30. We were met by our guide Francisco.

The twenty-minute ride to the canyon was beautiful. I was still shocked that the place had not been discovered by people outside the area until 2004 -- it was huge!

We started our hike from Fransico´s house, which bordered the canyon park. The hike was way easier than we had imagined. Within 30 minutes we were at the river´s edge where we put our backpacks in a waterproof case that guides carried, and then hopped in the water and switched back and forth from swimming and scurrying across big boulders in shallow areas.

The canyon was spectacular. The water was a dark jade color, and the entire area was amazingly clean. We didn´t see too much wildlife, except for a few fish and an awesome, giant jumping spider that didn´t bite, of course, but our guides did talk about some mystery bird that, legend says, steals women and children and brings them to it´s nest... that´s what we understood based on our limited Spanish at least!

Anyhow, we had a blast traveling through the winding canyon walls, jumping in pools and taking in the spectacular scenery above. We had the opportunity to cliff jump in one area. I opted for the wussy jump of 2 meters. Chris, of course, went for the 6 or 7 meter jump. The guides were very very impressed!

After a couple hours of canyoning we were kind of cold and waterlogged, and low and behold waiting for us was a lancha! We gladly hopped in the little boat, which took us farther down the river to a nice little picnic spot on the river´s edge.

From there, we had to hooof it back to Francisco´s house. This hike was a bit more difficult than the hike in, but we did get to see some beautiful ranch land... we made it back to Francisco´s house after an hour hike in the sun. We were ready for a shower, a cold beverage and maybe a nap!

We had to wait about an hour for a cab, which made us even hotter and more tired. A shower sounded amazing! Unfortunately when we got to our hotel, no hay agua! What are you going to do though? We´ve learned that elecricity and running water are a priviledge and not something to count on a daily basis.

We forewent our showers and headed into to town to find a bakery that made a treat for which Somoto is renowned worldwide: rosquillos, small cracker/cookies made with a local cheese and sometimes with dried fruit on top.

We meandered through the cobble stones streets and were greeted with a friendly buenas from elderly couples sitting on stoops, and cowboys in ten gallon hats and boots parked their caballos alongside tuktuks. We liked Somoto.

We found the little bakery on the outskirts of town. It was a mini factory where two girls were filtering the finished cookies along some kind of mesh screen... no clue what this did... the girls offered us two samples, one of the cheese only crackers and one with a dried fruit on top. The first was a small hard donut shaped cracker tasted like a stale gold fish cracker. Bleh. The second, was a thinner cracker with a small piece of tamarin (?) fruit on top. At first we weren´t sold on it, but after a couple more tries, we were hooked. We bought a bag of twenty that would last less than a day. hehe.

After our little excursion through town, we were finally able to shower up and take a quick rest. After cleaning up, we took one more stroll through town. We visited a beautiful, beautiful park in the center of town. It could have been in a big city in the U.S... a cobble stone path led visitors through perfectly manicured gardens surrounded by raught iron fences, all which centered around a beautiful bubbling fountain. Again, we liked Somoto!

Directly outside of the park was a giant stone church, and when we left the park gate, directly above the church was a magnificent, orange full moon. Wow. I wish I could´ve have taken a picture!

We topped off our last evening with dinner across the street from our hotel... decent food with flavor, which was cool. We once again headed to bed early in preperation for an early and LONG day of travel... if only we had known how long it would really be!