June 24, 2009
So a new season started this week. Nicaraguans call this season winter or the rainy season. When they say rainy they’re not joking around. It has rained everyday but not all day thank god. It rains heavily for about an hour each day. The rain has brought a couple new and exciting experiences. The first is the fact that the path that I walk to get home becomes a river in the rain. Therefore, walking home now is a lot more thrilling and wet. The other new, exciting experience is showing in the rain. That’s right, I shower in the rain. Honestly, it is one of the most relaxing experiences ever. Also, the rain makes rinsing much easier (it’s kind of hard when taking a bucket shower). When I get back to the US, I am strongly considering building a shower outside (if you showered in the rain once, you would want one too).
The weekend starting on June 19th was really enjoyable. Two volunteers from Dayton who are working in Managua came to Sabana Grande to visit for the weekend (their names are Tim and Jim, fun right). On Friday, we just hung around Sabana Grande. We spent the night speaking English, drinking Pepsi, and playing some UNO!! Saturday was an adventurous day. The six volunteers from Dayton and one volunteer from Greece all went to Somoto Canyon. Somoto Canyon is a natural tourist attraction only 20 minutes out of or village. The adventure started as we left the bus station and head out to the canyon in a “taxi”. So, our taxi was actually a pickup truck and we all stood in the back bed of the truck! Once we arrive at Somoto Canyon (all in one piece), we hiked down the path towards the heart of the canyon. I mentioned that it is the rainy season right, yeah, so there was a lot of water in the canyon. Our first obstacle was crossing a river (nearing the intensity of a mild rapid). We all successfully waded the river without incident. After walking about two miles we made it to the mouth of the canyon. There we took a row boat, paddled by our guide Joel, into the canyon. The canyon was where the real fun began. After getting off the boat we scaled the side of the canyon and made our way down to where we could swim. As we approached the place where we were going to enter the water I knew we were in for a thrill. The water was rushing through the bottom of the canyon and the canyon walls towered 200 meters over us. At a spot where the flow of the water was slightly slower we enter the water. We methodically worked our way up the canyon. Sometimes we climbed at other times we swam. The combination of the challenges and various dangers made the journey up the canyon extremely fun. All I know is there is no way you would be able to do this in the US. After exploring the canyon for about an hour we all were exhausted (swimming against a current is difficult exercise). Luckily the trip back was much easier. They had rafts waiting for us and we floated all the way back to the beginning of the trail. As you can imagine, Sunday was spent sleeping and relaxing…recovering!!
More to come,
Nat-tan
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Nathan,
I am very happy for you and your team. It sounds like you are learning a great deal. We wish you safe a venture and looking forward to seeing you soon.
Take care,
Love Rich, Mary & Kaelyn, Lindsay