Somotillo

After our time in León we decided to head up to Somotillo to visit the family with whom I stayed with for 5 weeks last time I was in Nicaragua. Somotillo is not a huge tourist attraction, it's a rural town with nothing more than a small market, some shops and a central park with a church and basketball court. Our main reason for spending 10 days up there, other than visiting friends was to practice our Spanish as next to nobody up there speaks english!

It was strange heading back as when I left last time I really thought I would never return. Two years on and all the same faces were there, a few adjustments to the house with an extra room added on and a little shop in the entrance way.

The house is home to 8 people but as it is close to christmas, there were a few extras from the extended family and when I say a few... There were 15 of us living in the one house...

Inevitably when one of us got sick, we were all going to get it so I had a cold most of the week and now Harry has it too! But I'm not complaining, I will take a couple cold over dengue or malaria!

Our "alarm" in the mornings was when our room was so filled with smoke from cooking on the open fire that it was hard to breath, then you knew it was time to get up! True to form we had water for the first couple of days and then we went without for another 3 or 4 days before it came back on again.

Most of the time was spent reading, eating, Harry practicing guitar and playing frisbee and football during the evenings. As for our spanish... It didn't quite go as planned and the main thing we learnt was how to insult each other... Obviously hanging out with young people and playing sports we spent the time just hassling each other. One of my personal favourites was when you just say their mothers name in a really aggressive way such as "Marta!" "Mariana!" and this is quite a sufficient way to abuse somebody.

On our last day we bought a gallon of icecream, bananas and chocolate sauce and had a big treat with everybody staying in the house. It was a nice way to spend 10 days and now we are back in León to spend christmas here before taking the 20 hour bus ride through Honduras and El Salvador to Guatemala. We went to see Narnia at the cinema yesterday for less than $2, what a deal! We also had a day christmas shopping, the clothes here are super cheap but it means our bags are getting heavier!

So I guess we should say Feliz Navidad to you all at home, we will miss you very much over christmas and new years and it just won't be the same without friends and family! It will be a different christmas but a happy and exciting one none the less.

Hope you are all well and enjoying the christmas break :)