Danger and Wonder

Estelí, Nicaragua

The more I traveled, the less preparation I put into planning everything. When I got to Estelí I made arrangements through my hostel to take a tour of Somoto Canyon, because that's what people did in Estelí. I didn't really have any idea what I was getting into.

I met my guide Yancy at the bus station in Somoto. She was a squat strong native woman dressed in sleek waterwear as opposed to the typical native dresses. With her was a German Klaus in his 40s or 50s who had I think met her at the bus stop. He had been looking to explore the canyon by himself, but she convinced him that this was "not recommended." Which turned out to be quite an understatement.

We took a bus from Somoto to her family's house where we ate breakfast and played with their many dogs. After breakfast I changed into my swimming trunks and Klaus changed into a pair Yancy's uncle gave him. Then we hiked out to the canyon.

The Somoto Canyon was 12km of canyon in northern Nicaragua. Sharp rock walls hemmed in the canyon, ranging from just a few meters high at points to maybe 15 or 20 meters at its highest. A river ran through the canyon, at parts calm but with many rapids as well. The rocks were covered in giant spiders, which our fearless guide Yancy chased around with her fingers for fun.

The gist of the tour was that Yancy was going to lead us 12km through this canyon. Which meant either climbing the slippery rock walls alongside the canyon, swimming in the rapids and trying not to crash up against sharp rocks, or walking along the edge of the canyon, using holes in the rocks (which could contain giant spiders) to prevent ourselves from being swept away by the current and smashed up against rocks.

It was terrifying.

For the me cliff climbing was the sketchiest. I was wearing sandals with zero traction and at some point I had to remove them, because the only step I had was at a bad angle and I was pretty sure I would have slipped and fallen 5 meters into a bunch of sharp rocks.

At one point in the tour we had to jump off a 10 meter cliff, much to Klaus's horror. The explanation for this was that during the rainy season the only other path - a small waterfall - would suck you down 20 meters underwater and kill you.

There were several aspects of the tour that made me feel like this whole canyon experience was still a work in progress.

There was one other group in the canyon, led by a couple friends of Yancy's. They were tubing the rapids. When we reached the waterfall that would kill you we relied on a rope they had. We swam down some rapids and then caught the rope to stop from going over the waterfall and dying. Why didn't our guide have a rope?

At the end of the tour there were supposed to be horses to take us the last stretch, but the horses couldn't make it because the water was too high. So we crossed some more rapids.

When we finished Yancy told us that we had finished 2 hours faster than most groups. But by the time we returned to her house we had to call a cab back to the bus station and arrived literally one minute before the last bus for Estelí departed. What did people normally do? Get stranded in Somoto for the night?

Also Yancy wasn't like any tour guide I had ever had. She was candid and not super outgoing. Klaus and I had to prod her to start up conversations, which she readily joined. But she had no prepared pitches. It was a refreshing and terrorizing experience.

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What I really wanted to see in (or near) Estelí were the stone carvings of Don Alberto Gutierrez. Klaus in fact told me that he had tried to find Don Alberto's ranch and failed the previous day. I took the easy route and arranged another "tour" through my hostel for $30.

This time I took a local bus up some pretty precarious dirt roads and got dropped off at a little café, where I expected to meet my guide Reynaldo. He wasn't there. I had his phone number though and was able to reach him. He was on his way.

Turned out Reynaldo was late because he was escorting a German Tanja in her 40s or 50s.

Tanja was dumber than shit and apparently had torn ligaments in her leg but was employing no walking aid. So we ended up more or less dragging her to Don Alberto's place. She claimed to be writing a travel guide to Nicaragua and took a lot of pictures and asked for plant names and whatnot. She also was the first German I've ever met traveling who didn't speak English. We spoke to each other in Spanish.

Don Alberto was a 76-year-old man who had never married and had been carving a stone wall 3 hours a day for 40 years. Before that apparently he was a drunk. He was surprisingly tall and fit.

His ranch sat at the top of a hill in the jungle. It was filled with all kinds of fruits and rare flowers like orchids. He received visitors daily, and he would take them on a tour of his gorgeous property pointing out the different plants and emitting a steady stream of qué bonitos (how beautiful).

The centerpiece was a 100-foot long wall about 10ft high at the top of the mountain overlooking a valley. Through the years he had carved all kinds of images - animals, a helicopter (which he said had something to do with the revolution), the old and new testaments of the bible (part of his favorite section), etcetera. It was the most incredible sight I had seen on my journey to that point.

I would recommend everyone to try to make a visit to Don Alberto's before he dies. I'm sure it will become a protected site and a major tourist attraction in years to come.

After Don Alberto's we returned to Reynaldo's village and ate lunch. We were supposed to take a tour of his village, which we didn't have time to do. He took me out to a mirador where you could look out over a cliff and introduced me hastily to a man who gives coffee tours. That was it. Pressing bus schedules again.

I didn't really mind though. I am interested in different cultures, but I never get much out of those sorts of tours. I'd rather learn about different cultures over beers at a bar.

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So this was my first and possibly my last typical travel blog in which I wrote about tours I went on and cool things I saw. Normally I don't have any interest in writing another review of an oft-visited locale you could research yourself on Lonely Planet or Travel Advisor.

But for me these tours were so different from any other tours I'd ever been on and I enjoyed them so much more. So I figured, what the hell. Next time I'll be back to stories of drinking beers and shooting pool. Promise.