YES!  FINALLY!! We ran into the notorious “crooked cops” we had heard so much about throughout our travels in Mexico and Central America!  Before and during our travels we had been warned about Mexico and Honduras in particular, but to this point (6+ months on the road) had sailed through without any problems.

“When we get to Leon we should go volcano boarding in Cerro Negro!” Ash said to me.

As usual, I was only half-listening, but responded with the standard, “Sounds good…”, not really understanding what I was agreeing to.

After leaving Somoto we made our way to the town of Esteli in search of information about a possible Nicaraguan homestay.  We stopped in at Hostel Luna’s affiliate tour company, Treehuggers Tourism Office, which provided us with a list of families residing in Reserva Natural Miraflor.

fter our escapades at the Honduras-Nicaraguan border we didn’t have much daylight left to make it to our next goal of hiking the Somoto Canyon.  We did however pull into the town of Somoto where we found an inexpensive hotel (Hotel El Rosario) where we were able to park in the courtyard. Score (I wish we had parking options like this at home sometimes.).