April 1 – April 3, 2018
We were happy to be back on the road and after a few hours of driving on good roads we arrived at our campsite at Somoto Canyon. We parked in a green field next to the river with a great variety of birds, including the national bird of Nicaragua, the Guardabarranco, which looks like this, I have yet to get a good picture of one, but, as you can see, they are pretty gorgeous. Feathers like that and you may imagine that this beauty lives in an elegant nest, surrounded by eider down throw pillows and firefly lanterns, but no, they live in a hole in the dirt banks alongside roads, trails and rivers (thus the name which translates to the guard of the bank). Could be quite nice inside I guess….
Ah, back in the camper!
After a peaceful night (save for the ever present central american rooster who starts to crow around 2 am), we were met for the day at about 7:40am by our guide Noel, who, as it turned out, spoke quite a bit of english. We walked up the road, left Piper tied up under a large, shady tree (at the home of a local associated with the cooperative that ran the camping and tourism services at the canyon) and we started our walk towards where we would enter the canyon. Along the way Noel told us about the area, pointed out interesting rocks and crystal quartz in the gravel bed of the road, told us about his family and the cooperative that runs the canyon tours.
As we approached where we would enter the canyon we could see the border control buildings for the entry back into Honduras, and got a nice view of the river upstream from where we would enter.
We started rock hopping and wading along the side of the river, and then it was time to get wet. The first immersion up to the neck felt pretty cold, but we quickly adjusted. We floated, thanks to our mandatory life jackets, between the canyon walls. Blue Morpho butterflies fluttered by, sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs. We saw bats that live on the underside of the overhanging rocks. We saw bird nests crammed onto tiny ledges.
The start of the canyon.
Soon we reached the only mandatory jump into the water of the tour. Derek went a little higher on the rocks and dove head first into deep water, I chose to jump a staggering 1 metre into the same water. I hate jumping into water from any height. It’s not the free falling, I have both tandem sky dived and bungee jumped before, it’s the landing in the water. I had a bad entry jumping from a high diving board as a kid and I guess I have never forgotten it. If you got to have a fear, not a bad one to have, considering it is a situation I rarely find myself in.
We had a lot of fun with Noel in the canyon.
As we continued, the walls of the canyon got higher and higher. We were there in the dry season, but Noel said in the rainy season it is even more spectacular; everything is green, the orchids hanging from the tops of the cliffs are in bloom, and the water is higher and faster. After a particularly heavy rains, they can’t even go into the canyon, as there are places that the water forms large, dangerous whirlpools.
There was a family ahead of us, so occasionally we would stop on a gravel bar to let them get around the next bend before we continued. Derek and Noel would throw stones to small carved out holes high on the canyon walls to see who could get a stone in first (I tried a couple, too embarassing how little distance I achieved).
We came to another area with an optional jump, I slid into the water with Noel’s water bag while he and Derek jumped from about 8 metres into the water. At the end of the swimming part of the tour there was a second optional jump, which Derek and Noel did. Noel said it was also about 8 metres but both Derek and I thought it looked a lot higher than the last one. It took Derek a little longer to “make the plunge”, and I held my breath as he jumped as it looked just so high from my perspective floating in the water below. But he landed it like a pro, disappearing from sight in the green grey water and reappearing after a few seconds with a big smile on his face. He later said he was surprised by two things; how long it took to hit the water, and how long he was underwater after the jump.
We came to the end of the swimming portion of the tour and were ushered to a row boat, where, along with the family that had been ahead of us on the tour, we were rowed to a little sandy beach. We walked about another kilometre to where we were camped, retrieved Piper, and then enjoyed chicken, beans, rice and squash lunch provided by the tour company, at our campsite.
The beach at the end of the canyon.
We hung around at camp for most of the afternoon, then hiked up for about an hour to visit two overlooks of the canyon, before sunset.
At one of the lookouts.
The canyon at sunset.
A guide is not necessary to do the canyon, but we felt as though Noel really added to the day, and the cooperative he works for employs a lot of people in the area. We would definitely recommend them if you are ever in the area.