Lucie & Rhys´s Honeymoon Adventure: Week 39 - Leon, Esteli, Matagalpa, San Salvador (Nicaragua, El Salvador)

We had a relaxed last day in Leon. Rhys got me to a agree to a Burger King for lunch before we headed to the Centro de Arte Fundación Ortiz Gurdián, a small art gallery composed of two restored, colonial buildings housing exhibitions of paintings, sculptures, images, and contemporary arts. After the gallery we wondered the streets for a while before Rhys headed back to the hostel and I popped out for a haircut. Later Rhys headed to the cinema to watch Superman in the air conditioned theatre as respite from the heat of Leon - we’re talking 34 Celsius minimum every day. That evening we headed to a bar for a few quite drinks with Charlie, an Irish guy who we went volcano boarding with.

The next day we left Leon and headed east to the central highlands and Estelí. Estelí isn’t the prettiest place in the world but apparently is a hotbed of political activity having seen heavy fighting and serious bloodshed during the Revolution. We checked in to a little hotel near the cathedral and after a brief wonder around town to orientate ourselves, stopped for a street food burger dinner.

We were up early the following day (just after the air raid siren had gone off in the square, no idea what that was for) to catch a bus out to Somoto, a village 20km from the Honduran border. Having arranged a tour in Estelí, we were met by our guide at the bus station and piled in to a taxi to his house. We dropped off our bags, donned the wet shoes provided and jumped back in the taxi to the entrance of the Somoto Canyon national park. We spent the next 4 or so hours wading down river, hopping from boulder to boulder, swimming in the deeper bits and hurling ourselves off of the rock walls into the river below. I think the biggest jump I managed was about 12m with Rhys braving 16m. The canyon was extremely peaceful and beautiful, other than one family we didn’t see any tourists, just locals fishing. The trip ended with a short boat trip and a walk back to the guides house where we had lunch before grabbing a taxi back to the bus station and an express bus back to Estelí.

Our next stop was Matagalpa, an hour and a half further east. Matagalpa has a prettier setting than Estelí, set as it is in the mountains, surrounded by bright green coffee plantations and alpine pastures. We spent the afternoon exploring the small town and sitting in a small coffee shop watching football on the TV.

Day two in Matagalpa we headed to the bus station for a bus to the Selva Negra, a stretch of pine clad mountains named by the area’s German immigrants in the nineteenth century after their homeland’s Black Forest. From the bus stop it was a 1.5km walk to the hotel where we paid our entrance and picked up a trail map. As it had rained during the night the paths were pretty muddy and at times were quite steep and overgrown but the forest was beautiful. We spent 3 hours walking 7km along a selection of the the trails listening to the birds and avoiding stepping on poisonous coral snakes before the heavens opened and we had to dive into the restaurant to avoid getting drenched. Rhys had found a small army of termites had made one of his hiking boots their home (they were literally covered in them, looked like the shoe was alive) so he hiked in his Etnies and ended up on the floor more than once as a result of the lack of grip and slippery slopes. After a disappointing cup of coffee (as a working coffee finca that apparently produces some of the best export grade coffee in the country, you would expect the coffee to be amazing), and a slice of cake the rain had subsided enough for us to walk back to the main road to wait for the bus. Unfortunately the bus stop was right next to a cock fighting ring and we had to spend 30 minutes watching truck loads of men rocking up to watch the ‘sport’, hearing the cocks crowing and listening to the spectators cheering.

We returned to Estelí at lunch time the following day and checked back in to the same hotel. Having already seen everything that we wanted to in town we spent the day catching up on emails and the like.

The week ended with an early start, having been awoken by the air raid siren and hundreds of fire crackers (they are obsessed with fireworks in Central America and set them off at any time of the day and anywhere) and a taxi to a petrol station on the InterAmericana where we sat for over an hour waiting for the Ticabus to turn up. A pleasant break from chicken buses we’d booked a Ticabus coach to San Salvador as we decided to skip Honduras altogether - not only because it meant we’d have more time in Guatemala and Mexico for where we’ve been hearing rave reviews from other backpackers but because we’d also heard a ridiculous amount of scare stories about how dangerous Honduras is at the moment with people walking the streets with guns and swords. Although a lot of people are still visiting the Bay Islands, because we don’t dive and we’re planning on spending time on beaches further north we decided we’d just race through on an international bus to El Salvador.

The border crossings were a breeze with Ticabus organising all the practicalities for a small admin fee and the 2 hours we spent driving though southern Honduras made it look stunning and somewhere we wouldn’t be against coming back to when things have settled down in years to come.

Once in El Salvador the bus went straight to San Salvador, the capital. From the drop off point we jumped in a taxi to the hostel we’d booked on line. We’d read reviews that it was hard to find but we weren’t ready for the hour it took the cab driver to find the place bearing in mind we were armed with an address, directions and a phone number. We finally got there after dark and were glad they served food onsite and the rooms were furnished with minibars so we didn’t have to venture out.