After an interesting surfing experience in La Libertad we drove to Somoto in Nicaragua. It took us the whole day because we had to drive through 2 borders in the same day. One border from El Salvador into Honduras and then from Honduras into Nicaragua. Each of these border crossings takes about 3 hours because of the unorganized chaos that takes place down here to get papers to the correct person and office and acquire signatures and stamps for our car. Nevertheless, we had a long day with the police stops. What not mentioned in this article was already posted a month ago, see Finally In Nicaragua! for more details.
Our first stop in Nicaragua was Somoto near the border. We had heard there was some good canyoning in this area and we were not disappointed. We decided to bunk up at a terrible hostel with the most inhospitable host we have had on the entire trip. When we arrrived her daughter was rocking in a chair giving us death looks like Todd from the movie the Wedding Crashers...very strange to begin with. Then we talked to the mother who owns the place and she showed us some rooms and we were all set. There was a kitchen out in the open air, and most hostels allow you to use the public kitchens. Little did we know this was her prized possession of a kitchen and noone not even the death look daughter was allowed in there. Before we found this out however, we went to market and bought raw meats and vegetables for making pasta. On our return she began to yell at us for trying to use the kitchen, saying it was off limits even after several attempts of promising to clean all dishes and the kitchen itself...pretty standard protocol.
We then decided to ask a local corner restaurant run by a small family if they would cook our food for us if we paid them. They were very nice and they agreed to let us pay to use their kitchen in the back. We proceeded to make pasta sauce with them looking over our shoulders and we are preety sure they have never seen anything like it before. A refreshing change for them rather than rice beans chicken. Overall a good exchange of hospitality and conversation from these very nice people.
Visiting the canyon was very nice as we were able to swim, hike, cliff jump all along the river inside this canyon. It was very beautiful and good excersize. A real life junglejim for all of us who like to run around. After that, not much else to see in Somoto and we were off to Leon to do some volcano boarding!

After just one night at the Bearded Monkey hostel in Granada we decided to skip the city and head to the island of Ometepe.

The massive Lago Ometepe, is somewhat reminiscent of Lake Iliamna in Alaska. Stretching roughly 20 miles long and 6 miles wide. In the center of the lake lies an island with two volcanos, one of which is active. Volcan Concepcion is considered active and had erupted with the latest eruption in 2005. The other volcano, Maderas, is considered dormant, but has a lagun on top which feeds a gigantic waterfall.
I don't recall the name of the "ferry" we took to the island, but it was similar to the USS minot. It ran a wopping 3knots an hour and had the seaworthiness of a rubber duck. The wind was howling which created 4ft to 5ft waves and an even tipsier boat to say the least. Not long after, 1.5 hours or so, did we finally land to find 10 taxi cab drivers asking if we needed transportation. We had a few ideas about where we wanted to go, but realized that we just needed to go to a hostel and check in. We made our way to the east side of the lake where the wind was relentless at 25knots or so. The water was warm so Derek and Mike took a dip as soon as they made it over. That night around 7 or so, thousands if not millions of mosquitos swarmed the living quarters where we were staying. Oddly enough they only lasted for an hour or so.

The next day Ari, Michael and Derek were behind the handlbars of some kick asphalt 125 enduros. We made a $25 day rental into a $1000 ride, up and down and all around the island, no breaks except at Volcan Maderas's waterfall. We definitaly had the best tour of all, because the amount of area we covered.

Warning! Savages are closer than they appear




The next day we decided that two nights on the island was good enough for us, so we jumped on the only bus running that day. The waves were calling us, so onto San Juan Del Sur we went.

We arrived into El Salvador without much trouble and made our way to La Libertad. A stretched out town along the pacific offering fishing and surfing. We chose the latter of the two and surfed most of the time we were there. We stayed at yet again another Dutch owned hostel, roughly 400 yards from the beach. We found that our surfing abilities didn't match the break, that is the break broke us. A strong, relentless current that kept dragging us sideways away from the break. Most of the area was full of surfers, but we managed to catch a couple waves.
The most significant thing about hte area was the feeling of insecurity there. We never felt threatened or had any runins with anybody, but walking around the area just to grab some pupusas had people gocking and saying "es peligroso gringo".
Pupusas were the main hit, $1 for three, a traditional El Salvadorian dish, basicaly two pancaked sized toritillas grilled together with cheese and some sort of meat. We also managed to buy a 10lb yellow tail snapper... and grilled it up right... Tasty!