Somoto Canyon

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Today we went to Somoto Canyon for some touristy fun. This was our first chance to take a local bus, which is quite different from the express bus we took from Managua. The bus to Somoto was a converted school bus, which basically means that they took an American school bus, slaped some bars on the top and sides, and incorporated a speaker system so that they can jam to their tunes, which sound surprisingly like 90’s pop – kind of a Latino Billy Joel. The bus attendants are quite interesting as well. They man the front and back doors to make sure everyone pays, and let the bus driver know when it is time to get going. The interesting part is that once everyone is on board, or at least partially on board, they whistle and then run to catch the moving bus, grab one of the handy bars and pull themselves up. It looked like a pretty fun job, plus they get cheat the customers out of a few bucks.

When we got to Somoto, our group, which consisted of Tony, Sharelle, Nadia, Craig, Roberto, Karen, Edwin, C.J. and me, wandered around for a little to pick up some lunch and refregerios before taking a taxi to the Canyon. The taxi was actually a pretty sweet deal; since we wanted a ride there and back, we didn’t have to pay until he picked us up at the end of the day. This was all included in our course dues though, so we let Karen handle the logistics of it… I think she may have struck a deal.

After he dropped us off we hiked down a pretty steep road to the mouth of the canyon. Then we crossed a few streams by stepping every so carefully on the river rocks, saw a man bathing himself in the river, and passed some cattle that appeared to be unaccompanied. We reached a small covering where there were a few ladies selling snacks and a pathetic looking dog begging for treats. From that point we took a couple little row boats down the river to where we could start our rock climbing hike. I wasn’t really sure why we were trying so hard to get over these rocks, because we were already pretty deep into the canyon, but we trekked on, and found a nice high rock where we could hang out on for a while. Karen and Edwin waded in the river and somehow convinced Nadia and me to join in. It was really fun though, there were some neat lagoons that were quite deep - more than 6 feet, although I didn’t check lest I get my hair wet.

The way back seemed to go a lot quicker, although the steep hill we went down was now quite a workout to get back up. We were rewarded for our hard work with a classic Nicaraguan downpour, which was quite refreshing after being out in the sun all day. We got back without any added adventure and were able to have our evening free.