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Published: February 21st 2013
Last Thursday we went to the Somoto canyon. After a hard walk in a terrible sun, we jumped into the water (wearing a lifejacket) to float for a while, some parts walking, sometimes jumping from the rocks into the water. Luckily we could choose how high we jumped, Zoe was fine with 2-3m, but Gyanendra enjoyed a jump from 10m. Besides the adventure, we enjoyed the great views of the river in between the high rocks. And afterwards we had a very delicious lunch at the home of the guide.
On Friday we went for 2 nights to Reserva Natural Miraflor, a community tourism project in the mountains. Besides the beautiful nature (cloud forest, tropical dry forest), you can observe the local rural lifestyle. There are many coffee plantations, but they also have other crops. Roads are unpaved and used by only a few cars. Most of the traffic is horse traffic. It was funny to see how teenagers were going to school by horse, when we passed the school, we saw a whole row of horses waiting for the school to end. The less positive thing about this was that those kids go to school only one day a
week, the other days they have to work on their farm. We slept in a "cabaña" on a farm, where we did a walk on our own: "just follow the trail, so you'll make a one hour tour on the farm" was what they said, but of course we got lost, going over and under fences (not for people, only for the animals). After a while we saw another farm and used our best Spanish to find the way back. We did also a long guided walk, which led us to a nice waterfall to swim. And we had some relaxing time in the garden, and enjoyed the home made food, better than any restaurant (she studied for cook). Another good thing there was the temperature, perfect in the day, cool in the night (sleeping under a blanket was great).
On Sunday we took the dusty bus back (Zoe got an eye-infection there) to Esteli and from there another bus to Leon. On the way we passed some kind of cowboy-festival. The Panamericana, the only highway here, passing through all Central America, was even closed for that (which didn't please the driver who got quite aggressive). Cowboys, fully dressed
up were there, some were on their horse, some were dancing,... Nice sightseeing!
So now we are in Leon, another nice city and our last destination. Monday just hanging around, getting used to the heat here and relaxing.
Tuesday we went to the mangroves some kilometres away to float about 5 km through mangroves river, just swimming with a lifejacket. Floating and waching at the birds: relaxing! Afterwards we went to the beach where Gyanendra took a surfing lesson and Zoe enjoyed a drink while looking at his progress ;-)
Today, yeah, the very last day, we went to Volcan Cerro Negro. Another volcano, but very different from those we've already seen: a fully black hill which is covered by ash. It is still active, they even expect it to erupt soon because the pressure is increasing rapidly. We saw a hill that wasn't there yet about two months ago... But we didn't only enjoy the views, we also had some adventure over there: ash boarding down from the top. We got a special (and very hot!) dress and a board (which we had to carry all the way up) to slide down from the hill. Very nice
experience!
Some general impressions about Nicaragua:
- people are really nice, always ready to help you
- it is more chaotic then Costa Rica, still more a developing country, but with lots of charm
- there seem to be guards (with huge guns) everywhere. Not only in front of banks and casinos, but also in front of more regular shops.
- it's not always easy to find your way. They have a funny way of mentioning an address. Something like "2 blocks south of the cathedral" or "1,5 block west of central park".
And some funny facts to end (it went fast and it is definitely over now, tomorrow we'll fly back home):
- the last 3 months we slept in 34 different rooms, we will be happy to be in our own again.
- When we arrive in Antwerp on Friday, it will be almost 40 degrees colder than where we are now, curious how our body will react...
See more pictures below!
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Sara buelens
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super grappige machtige foto's!! tot binnenkort Sara