Southern Exposure

Sunday, December 28

Our plan for the day was to ride back about 10 km to the Somoto Canyon which was the local nature attraction. Mario L. gave us a recommendation for a local guide named Ballardo (pronounced Ba-yardo). We were to try and find him in the village for a possible hike to the canyon. We were not too confident we would be able to locate him, but the first local kids we inquired with, pointed us to his house, and out of the blue Ballardo himself showed up, and was willing to guide us through the canyon.

We parked our bikes at his house, which like the rest of the village, seemed very poor. I used one of the rooms in the house to change my clothes, and was quite humbled by how destitute the inside was: there was no floor, just the same dirt as the dirt outside, the ceiling and walls were constructed with a combination of wood planks and all kinds of found materials, like cellophane, plastic, resin, etc.; there was nothing but two beds and a lonely light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

Ballardo’s family was sitting outside watching us unpack, pack and lock the bikes. We were were finally ready for our hike, and were joined by Ballardo’s daughter who was carrying a float boat, while he was carrying our life vests.

We hiked through some fields and took a private (gated) road down to the canyon until we reached the river.

We crossed the shallow river a few times jumping from rock to rock, but were soon advised to leave our sneakers on and start swimming down stream as the river became full and deep. The boat was available to us, but it was a lot more fun to swim dow the river looking up the tall rocky walls of the canyon.

The water was refreshingly pleasant, the sun was peaking through the narrow passages in the sky, and it felt like a perfect place to be on a hot afternoon – a nice alternative to riding. The canyon was washing away the irritation of the previous day’s two border crossings. I had a constant smile on my face throughout the whole adventure.

After about an hour of swimming and climbing through the rocks we stopped for a rest on a rocky island with a cliff about 10 m high. Ballardo, leading by example, challenged us to a cliff dive. I hesitated for a while, but after Matt did his dive, I knew there was no way out for me.

After our clavadista performances we continued swimming down the river and soon reached a rocky beach from which we were taken by a row boat to the “mainland.” There were a lot of locals hanging around the beach, having their Sunday picnics, drinking and dancing to the music that was bumping out of their 4×4’s.

We hiked back to Ballardo’s house. Had a quick snack from our convenient grocery supply, and were ready to hit the road south.

It felt so good to have spent a full day outside, enjoying the beautiful sights of the canyon, swimming in the river and being guided by a local Nicaraguan man and his daughter. We were very grateful for the opportunity. Thank you Mario L. for this great suggestion and thank you to Ballardo and his family for giving us such a hospitable adventure!

We rode for about 3 hours to the next big town of Etelí. We were stopped at a check point once without any problems. At a photo stop we were questioned by a Catholic missionary who said it was his dream to do our adventure. The rest of the ride was very pleasant and picturesque, the road’s smooth sweeping turns were taking us through fields with lush forests covered in fog in the distance.