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After seeing Rach safely into an airport taxi I left San Pedro Sula for the forth (and hopefully last) time and made the mammoth bus tip across Honduras and south into the highlands of Nicaragua. My first stop just over the border was the small colonial town of Somoto; the town didn't feature on the gringo trail until 2004 when some Czech scientists brought the existence of Cañon de Somoto to the world’s attention. Formed millions of years ago the gorge just outside town is a mere 10m wide but plunges 150m into the granite strata. Along its three km length runs the Nascent River between the high walls. With a local guide I spent a fantastic afternoon swimming, jumping and floating downstream through this extraordinary place, the near vertical granite walls shoot up either side and block out all direct sunlight & the water was deliciously cool. Half way down there was a big step in the river where I did a 10m rock jump, some Nicaraguans did it soon after & performed some spectacular belly flops. There were lots of birds nesting along the canyon walls but the strangest resident was a long legged tarantula which, when disturbed from
the security of the rock walls would do a kind of eight legged skip across the water.
Remaining in the highlands I moved onto Estelí, a city central to the regions agricultural commerce & famous for its cigar production; Nicaraguan cigars are apparently now rivalling Cubans for quality. Intrigued I went on a tour of a local Cigar factory and saw all stages of production from leaf drying to sorting, rolling, finishing and packaging. Every stage of production was completed by hand, even the manufacture of the wooden boxes. It was fascinating seeing row after row of workers performing one part of the process like cogs in a well oiled machine. They churned out cigars with such skill and precision all for about 50p per 10 cigars produced.
Up in mountains surrounding Estelí I visited the wonderful Tisey-Estanzuela natural reserve, covered in green pasture and pine forest it contrasted greatly with the dry brush of the lowlands, the climate was temperate, cool with a gentle breeze, such a relief, it reminded me of the north east a bit. The reserve covered a large area & I spent the whole day exploring on foot. Near the entrance of the
reserve was the 36m Estanzuela waterfall, cascading over the centre of a semicircular cliff face the falls supplied a refreshingly cool swimming hole below. Further into the park I visited the mountain village of La Garnacha, surrounded by pastureland, this enterprising community have built a cheese factory! I went on a guided tour and was given free samples, the cheese was amazingly good and I couldn´t resist buying a small wheel which admittedly did not last the day. The whole reserve is perched on a mountain top which affords some spectacular 360 degree views of the country, some of the best I´ve seen.
Perhaps the best stop of the day was to the Galeria del arte El Jalacate, over the last 39 years the hugely eccentric resident Don Alberto has carved hundreds of animals, figures and landscapes into the 40m cliffs surrounding his home. He's very enthusiastic about his work, inspired by some wacky dreams his creations included animals from round the globe like elephants, lamas, pumas and lots of birds, he also had some religious figures a couple of Egyptian kings and even a helicopter (I didn't quite understand the explanation of the later). Alberto was hilarious; he
looked like a cross between Albert Einstein and Dr. Emmett Brown from Back to the Future, he spent most of the tour turning to the view down the valley spreading his arms and pronouncing "bonissimo, si".
After the temporary relief of the highland climate I headed down to Léon in the lowlands, situated at the centre of Nicaragua’s most active volcanic region, the town is flanked by a chain of 10 volcanoes called the Cordillera de los Maribios. Near the centre of this range is Cerro Negro, an extremely young volcano formed in 1850 and which has erupted 23 times since its conception. One side of this volcano has been covered in a smooth surface of fine ash, the slope was first used to break the mountain bike land speed record (107mph), see link below.
Following this madness people started to surf the volcano & for the last few years tourists have been giving it a go too, that’s why I’m here. The volcano is a black splodge on the landscape, no plant life has yet found a foothold on its slopes due to the eruptions which repeatedly cover the slopes with ash, near the summit
are several craters remnant of past eruptions, proper comic book style craters with rising smoke plumes and pungent yellow sulphur staining the surrounding rocks. The summit forms part of the main craters rim & from this vantage the whole string of the Cordillera de los Maribios volcanoes are laid out parallel to the coast, several with plumes of smoke billowing out, quite a sight.
It had taken us an hour to hike to the top of the volcano; the guide said it would take us 45 seconds to get down. The 'surfing' slope had a 40 degree incline and togged up in knee pads, jump suit and goggles I strapped myself onto an improvised snow board and skidded down the mountain at speed, tremendous fun, fell arse over tit a couple of times but made it down in one piece; definitely a black run (sorry).
My next stop south involved a flight across the sparsely populated east of the country to the Corn islands 70km east of the Caribbean coast. After landing on Big Corn I took a bumpy boat ride across the remaining 12km of ocean to the smaller sibling of the island pair called Little Corn.
At only 1.1sq miles this tiny island is the archetypal Caribbean paradise; palm trees, golden sand, clean turquoise waters; a great place to chill out for a few days. Apart from some serious hammock time, I explored the heavily forested island & did a few dives on the nearby reef. Must say paradise is all well and good but there is not much to do...
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