Nicaragua - Somoto

My first impression of Nicaragua was GREEN. From the border of Honduras i found a taxi to take me 40 min ride to Somoto. I shared the taxi with 6 others. 4 cramed in the backseat and 2 in the passengerseat in the front. I was lucky to sit in the back. We drove through amazing landscape of green hills and mountains. Not a house or village in sight. When I came to Somoto I checked into Hotel Panamericana. Somoto is a pretty little town located in the hills in the northen Nicaragua. It is the captial of the municipality Madriz, the name means Valley of Geese. It is said that olmecs and Aztecs populated this area in pre-historic times. I do not know if there are any signs of them today, nor have I heard about any archaeological sites there. There are few indiginous groups in Nicaragua (I will come back to them later). Somoto is home to Somoto Canyon, a popular tourist attraction in the area. Somoto Canyon was declared a national monument in 2005, and then became one of 78 protected areas managed the Ministery of the Environment and Natural Resources. The protected area covers 170 hectares, 125 hectares is the acctual valley. The valley was unknown to the western world (anyway, the people in the area probably knew about it) until a group of scientist from the Czech Republic and Nicaragua found it and explored it in 2004. The canyon is believed to be 5-13 million years ago, and now, with growing tourism it is in danger of beeing destroyed by grafitti and garbage.

                                      The church in Somoto

                                        Somoto Valley