Somoto Canyon

I have had quite the adventure over the past four days. A group of us--Christina and Hannes (my Austrian friends who live in Masaya), Christian (their friend visiting from Italy), Camilla and Trine (my Norwegian roommates) and Gwen (my American running partner)--went camping in Somoto Canyon for two nights, and then I accompanied Christina, Hannes and Christian on a road trip to Cinco Pinos, Chinandega.

Somoto Canyon is about two hours north of Esteli (where I am currently living). We hired guides to help us navigate and to add even more adventurous dimensions to our journey (i.e. repelling down the canyon, bouldering on the rock face, crawling into bat caves, fishing with a spear gun, getting through passages that are only accessible by swimming through, etc.)

Here are Christina, Christian and Hannes on part of our two-day hike.

Camilla, our guide Consalo, and Christian. Consalo grew up in Somoto Canyon and knows the place by heart. As a young boy, he used to hike/climb/swim through the canyon three times per week.

More incredible views.

These rocks looked like glaciers, but I think they're actually some form of soap stone.

We warmed tortillas on barbed wire in the morning. Some of the guides came by with a thermos of fresh coffee from someone's finca (farm) and cuajada (the soft, white cheese that Nicaraguans make daily out of fresh cow's milk). We roasted sausages on sticks the night before. I am still amazed at how such a group of skinny guides were able to haul all of our gear, including tents and a cooler full of beer down this canyon. I know they had horses for part of it...


Christina and Hannes waking up in the morning by the fireside.

Christina getting on her harness for the repelling or abseiling.

Hannes got the full harness for some reason.

I was told that the helmet was just in case rocks came down on top of me, so I guess a bicycle helmet was okay. I wasn't used to this huge "rescue 8" system. It was quite fast once I got going. Gwen and I came down the fastest, so there were lots of jokes about Americans being in a hurry. :-) Don't worry though. I was in control and very safe. We all had to land in knee-deep water, which was a little awkward.

Here are Camilla, Gwen, Consalo and Trine below the repelling route. It was a great place to boulder because there were awesome hand and foot holds all over the place. We climbed into a bat cave as well, which was pretty cool (even though after I was nearly attacked by bats the day before, it wasn't my top destination choice). Poor Trine wasn't feeling well at all and hiked out early with a guide the next morning.

Here is the barn outside the finca where we had breakfast (desayuno tipico) the next morning.

A pretty rooster.

A saddle hanging from the tree. A rooster strutting its stuff. A typical finca scene.

An adobe stove in the backyard.

Lots of cows or "vacas."

Christina and Hannes hanging out waiting for breakfast.

Gwen, Christian, Christina and Hannes relaxing after our very steep, 45-minute, pre-breakfast jaunt up to the finca on day two.

The house or "casa." Lots of cool plants. The house is powered by solar panels.


A pretty rainbow in the town of Somoto after our trip.


Had to take a picture of the Taliban family's bar/truck stop. Kind of creepy...

P.S. I will post more pictures from Somoto soon. We've all promised to swap pictures at the end, so there are plenty more stories to share...