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!