North of Estelí

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The last post left me at San Rafael del Norte, the beginning of the coffee region.

We had been meaning to go to the Somoto Canyon for some time and we were finally on our way. We stopped over in Estelí for lunch and a cafe similar to one we would find back home ; with a server from Miami and a chocolate cake tasting like one we would have made from the box mix, we enjoyed a taste of home. Then got to the bus station with a ride from a Nicaraguan-American we had met in the cafe. He said he hoped we would find our place one day. He had just moved to Esteli from California.

As we were waiting for the bus, we saw a foreigner, like us, who caught our eye and smiled at us. She was too excited to find other non-natives. Gaëlle was a volcano guide, and although she began by talking to us in English, we quickly realized she was French, and not only that, but she knew Quebec like the back of her hand and was a citizen of Canada. In the few minutes that we crossed paths we exchanged contact information and she invited us to the Miraflor region northeast of Esteli. We thought maybe on the way back down from Somoto we would go.

In Somoto, Pascal found a family that organized tours to the Canyon, and made a deal that included the tour, breakfast and dinner for a neat price of 35 dollars per person. The father of the household, Francisco, was a genuinely kind man who seemed to take an enormous amount of care running his business. He said he had inherited his land from his father, who had been 30 years older than his mother. He lived there with his two sons, about 18 years old, and his wife, who was about my age (yes they start families much earlier!).

I got down to washing some clothes when we got there, using their washing table. I was given a short lesson on how to wash by hand from Francisco's wife, and she seemed like she wanted to do it for me almost. The bees starting coming over, but she reassured me they were only looking to drink, and wouldn't bite.

We had a typical dinner (rice and beans or "gallo pinto", fried plantains, grilled chicken, cabbage salad, and sweet fruit juice). We had a nice chat with a Chinese American traveler who had just crossed the Honduran border. He said he traveled much of the year, but lived in Florida. He said he liked it there, because he could cook his favorite food and go to the gym. However he didn't like his nosey neighbors. He said he wanted to have his son experience the world outside the US, and so he was coming to Nicaragua.

The next day we woke up to the roosters early in the morning and got ready for our hike through the canyon. Our guide seemed to be in his early twenties and quite fit. He spoke English too, however Pascal insisted on speaking Spanish with him.

We saw that the Canyon was a national monument of Nicaragua. Our guide explained, as we were walking along the transamerica highway to get there, that that road was the only paved road in Nicaragua, and that the others were made out of hand-placed paving stones, made out of concrete and hexagonal. He told us there was an arrangement between the government and the stone laying contractors to encourage the local economy. Also apparently they are easier to repair.
ALso we saw people picking up trash along the side of road as we went along and he said it was due to the Alcadia (the municipality). Everywhere in Nicaragua up to this point we had seen a trash, however this was the first place where I had noticed an effort to reduce anything. I suppose it was on account of the Canyon.

Unfortunately we saw some more trash as we entered the canyon, and our guide explained that that was from a weekend of partying.

The Canyon itself though was stunning, and the tour had parts where you walked over beautifully colored rocks and parts where you floated downstream between the narrow cliffs. There were several places where he showed us where to jump, and I did work up the courage to jump from several meters. Our guide jumped from the highest point of all of us, I would say 12 meters up. He said the last time he went up that high he spent 5 days in the hospital. This time it went well.

We were pretty beat after our 6 hour trek and were happy to eat an amazing vegetable soup we made a special request for. That night a couple from Nice, France, arrived from the border of Honduras. We had a pretty nice time talking with them and they said they would love to join us later on at the volunteering gig we had lined up in El Transito.

So we left the next morning, heading up to a place near Ocotal, where we heard there were hot springs. The bus driver on our bus spotted us and asked us where we were going. He said he could give us a lift up to the hot springs if we liked, since he had a taxi..we said sure so we got in his cab and he started playing Creedance Clearwater Revival and other American classics.

Well we got to the so-called hot springs, and although the place was all set up to receive clientele, the water just wasn't hot. So we went to a second place, same story, the water was not hot. Disappointed, we started to head back to the bus station. Our taxi driver however thought to reach out and touch a stream that was passing through the dirt road, and it was HOT. So he parked his taxi on the side of the road and we got out and enjoyed the hot stream.

We were thinking about visiting a solar panel workshop, a sort of place where you can learn how solar panels can be set up, but we didnt really have time before our bus out of Estelí.

On our way up to the Miraflor region I sat next to a teenager who lived up there and we had a nice little chat. She offered me some cookies and said she could read some English words, but could not speak it, or was too shy.

We arrived to the family's house up in the hills near Miraflor reserve and were warmly greeted by Adolfo and his wife. They were the owners of a beautiful coffee farm and grew their own food pretty much. They seemed to eat Typicos fairly often, had a dry toilet, a well, a little bucket shower and roosters. We stayed in the guest room. Their house had a concrete floor and bare wooden planks for walls. The roof was corrugated metal.

Adolfo was thrilled to have us there, and I wished I could understand better what he had to say. We had a nice chat about knowing where your food came from and we explained about how we received organic food baskets back in Canada. He said he realized that people were willing to pay a lot of money for organic in North America but they couldn't be sure where it came from unless they saw it with their own eyes where it had been growing.

It was funny knowing that his son was on his way to crossing the border illegally into the United States in order to make enough money to open up a hotel in Leon. He figured he would be there for 5 years. I thought why didn't he get a bank loan or something like that, but money was not so easy to come by, better to risk the dangerous trek to get a first amount of earnings.

Gaëlle was pleasantly surprised to see us and she also had her guide friend there with her, Angel, a Nicaraguan who also happened to be studying philosophy. His English was not so strong so we got to practice some Spanish, although a lot of what he said went over my head.

So the next day we got up early to set out on a long hike to a cascade. In the morning we gathered in the kitchen where Adolfo's wife was making tortillas. Pascal rolled and shaped a couple. Then we had a lovely hike around this beautiful region, filled with farms and fruiting trees, and we made it to the waterfall where we were too eager to bathe and eat our packed lunch. We even drank from the source, and there were no stomach problems at all ..

On the way back we were so tired and we realized that we had still two hours to go, we had spent way too long lolly gagging and stopping for a beer. Luckily some one picked us up as we hitchhiked. We happily got in the back of their truck along with 5 or 7 other people.

With that, our northern highland adventure was over.

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Photos

Covid plant
Just kidding

Comments

[Emily]

<3
Sounds wonderful as usual; looks like you're meeting lots of genuine and friendly people. Would love a dip in a hot stream right now!!! I totally agree with Adolfo, I wish I could see where my food was coming from!!

[uncle john]

Stay safe!
More pictures of youguys, please.