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We've been in Nicaragua for a few days now and it's AWESOME. The people are much more friendly and humorous than any of the countries so far that we've visited. The bus stations and buses are filled with chatter, people make conversation in the lines at the grocery stores, and not as many people stare at you like you're an alien. People are laughing and smiling just about everywhere you look.

The first town we stayed in was Somoto, a town that´s only been on the tourist map for a couple of years since the news spread of a beautiful canyon (now called Monumento Nacional Cañón de Somoto) in the area. The canyon and nearby town are still pretty much left alone, we only saw a couple of gringos the few days we spent there. Apart from the 8 or 10 we saw crammed on a boat coming downriver through the canyon, with only 1 Nicaraguan rowing. Poor guy. Aside from that we had the canyon all to ourselves for the afternoon. Only a few residents washing themselves or their clothes in the river, and a couple of kids trying to rent us a boat. There a few people living down near the mouth of the canyon in little huts, it must be interesting for them to witness the rise in tourism over the past few years, right in their own backyard. We were able to walk along the edge of the river for a ways, after a while you had to start navigating around the pools and over rocks and such (left picture) and eventually you had to swim a little bit to get to the next section of the canyon (right picture).

Back in Somoto, we found this interesting business. Photocopies, passport photos, and....meat.

We got into Esteli yesterday, and contacted the office of a cigar factory here in town to arrange for a tour the next day. I guess the brand of cigars made here, ¨Padron¨, are pretty world class and smoked by celebrities and rich people. The tour can only be taken by special appointment supposedly so no trade secrets are leaked. We thought it was to hide all the young children that weren't supposed to be working there, but that must not be the case since we saw quite a few. Each worker here rolls around 500 cigars per day, every row of rollers is a different phase in the making of the cigar, once one phase is completed, the cigar is passed on down the line. We saw a few guys on quality control, must be rough! The most expensive cigars sell for $40 or more from what I could find online, someone is getting rich, but it's not the people working in this factory.

The factory smelled great, like fine tobacco, but the smell was so strong it had an onion like effect on me eyes and sinuses. Strange. Here is Rachel inhaling some of the fine aroma of the tobacco leaves, and the lady on the right is using a machine that is used to remove the stems from the tobacco leaves. It was made in the U.S. and looked really old.

So it turns out, making a cigar is a long, long process.

Last night we were hanging out in a bakery/coffee shop next door to our hospedaje and a lady came up and started talking to us in english. She was really excited to be talking to some Americans, I guess she was born in Nicaragua but has lived in the U.S. for 30 some odd years and was going through some sort of culture shock being here on a 10 day trip. We got to talking and after a while she told us she was here getting dental work done, because it is so expensive in the U.S. It turns out she knew a dentist in town who had been a family friend for years, and did excellent work. Since this lady was somewhat traumatized by just existing in this town we loved, we figured she would be pretty picky about what dentist she went to. Rachel was long overdue for a cleaning and checkup, and I was coming up on a due date for a cleaning myself. So today we went in and got our teeth cleaned! It was pretty interesting, it was a one man show. No dental assistants, hygienists or office workers. Just a small room with a door, and inside was a modest set of dental tools and equipment. The cleaning went great, just like any other cleaning I have had except it only cost me 8 BUCKS. No cavities either, yay. Rachel has 2 cavities and is going in to get them fixed tomorrow. It costs 10 dollars for a filling, and around 100 dollars for a root canal (according to our lady friend). Pretty crazy, it costs the same for a filling as a 12 pack of beer!

Thats another thing I wanted to mention, how cheap everything is in Nicaragua:

Private room for 2, $6

Teeth cleaning, $8 a pop

Internet, .40 cents per hour (on fast computers)

Plate of food in local restaurant, with drink, $1.50 (rice, beans, small salad, tortillas and a meat of sorts)

We bought a 1lb of organic coffee from a local farm for $4

The only thing expensive is beer, which sucks. Oh well.