Many people have not been to Rio San Juan because of the trip, it is a bitch! There are basically 3 ways to get there: by air (which is generally too expensive for most Nicas and travelers), by boat (which is a 16 hour ordeal across Lake Nicaragua/Colcibolca), or by land (a 300 km bus trip which cost about $8). Now clearly the land options seems to be the way to go, but until recenly those 300 km took 9 hours or more, as described in my Moon guidebook on Nica "the road disintegrates entirely and your bus is left to batter its way at walking speed for hours through gulleys, rutted tracks, and mud pits". Woohoo! Luckily the road from Managua to San Carlos (the port town located where the river meets the lake) is almost finished, so the ride is not so bad. We still passed over some bridges, so narrow and without side rails, where when looking out the bus window all I could see was a straight drop to the water below! Yikes! For some reason, the bus ride still took about 8 hours, our driver made prolonged stops and chatted with his buddies along the way. Unfortunately, we left in the wee hours of the morning and so I slept most of the way, but when I was awoken to my head banging against the bus window, my hazy eyes caught some breath-taking views of green mountains, distant volcanoes and lots and lots of green pastures. The music on the bus was horrible, for one it was insanely loud, and it was some sort of 70s, early 80s disco music that I had never heard before. There was also a guy behind me playing his music with speakers and singing along! The whole thing made me feel gross, so I put on my ipod and found a more appropriate soundtrack for my journey.
As I mentioned before, the bus was not express, and many people were not going from Managua to San Carlos, but rather to two places in between. Once when I woke up a found myself sitting next to a rather handsome old vaquero: cowbot hat, boots and all. Several times the bus had to stop because a herd of cows was in the road...of course this is a common happening in Managua as well, but in any event, we were in cow country! Finally we arrived in San Carlos, in the pouring rain no less, and caught a cab that took us rather indirectly (picking up and dropping off 2 other people first) to the boat terminal. We did get to see the airport along the way, which consists of little more than a short, overgrown runway. I think I would fly down in the future, but only if my dad comes with me and can take over if anything goes wrong!
I guess by now I should have mentioned who I was traveling with...Tressa pretty much organized the whole thing. She is a fellow teacher at Lincoln, originally from Michigan. She has a very soft, calming voice and I have always wanted to observe one of her classes to see if she can maintain that same voice when teaching, that would just amaze me! Tressa's friend from college Vicky also came along. She had been volunteering with Manna Project all summer and took some time to travel at the end of her service. She is in medical school at Vanderbilt and her mom is Chinese, but was born and raised in Puerta Cabazas Nicaragua, so she has strong ties here.
The three of us boarded the panga (boat which holds about 50 people) to travel 2 hours up the San Juan river. The journey was beautiful and flew by! I listened to my audio book (since I get motion sick) and watched the lovely scenery pass by. We arrived on the small docks of Boca de Sabalos, a small town along the river and our hotel boat crossed the river to come pick us up. The hotel was right on the river and was basically a huge deck with rooms on it. We could hear the splashing under us, even while in our room. I treated myself to a crayfish for dinner, I was starving, we hadnt eaten all day! I also had the most amazing ice cream for dessert. I forgot to ask more about it, because it is hard to find good ice cream in Nicaragua, and certainly didnt expect to find it two hours up the San Juan river! We retired to bed early after killing about a thousand small moths that snuck into our room when we opened the door. The new room rule: never open the door at night when the light is on...that eliminated the problem.
The next morning we woke up at a leisurely hour, had a hardy breakfast, and did some riverside yoga to stretch out from the long bus ride the day before. We, at a very relaxing and leisurely pace, made our way up the river about 30 minutes to the town of El Castillo. El Castillo is so aptly named for the castle, or fort that was built during the Spanish Conquest. The fort is strategically placed on a hillside where you can see a far distance up and down the river. We paid a small amount to enter the museum and castle ruins (although it turned into a predicament because the ticket lady had no change, as is quite normal in Nicaragua, but nonetheless annoying). The museum was actually quite impressive and tells the history of the river which is full of tales of pirates, conquistadors, rum, gold, power struggles and people getting eaten by crocodiles and fresh water sharks! The river was/is the passageway from the Atlantic to the interior of Nicaragua and the important city of Granada. This was also almost the location of the Panama Canal, which obviously would have had a different name, probably the Nicaragua Canal. There would have been a lot less digging, only a short distance between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific Ocean, but in the end Nicaragua did not want to give the US complete control over the waterway and so Panama now famously has the canal. Yet another time when Nicaraguans were not willing to give up the precious San Juan River, and who can blame them? Although my mind does get lost in the possibilities of what could have been for Nicaragua if they had this important conduit of maritime trade...The museum also stated that the area of Rio San Juan is the second biggest oxygen producer in the world, which is cool and hard to believe!
Exploring the castle was fun! A photographers dream, besides the obvious gorgeous view from a semi-refurbished colonial fort, there were lots of great colors textures,and angles. I did the best I could to capture some good shots in the limited time we had there, as they closed for lunch and we had to catch the boat back to the hotel at 2. So we wandered around the very clean town for a bit and got a home cooked meal in a comedor, which is basically someones house, with some tables set up out front and you eat whatever they prepared for lunch or dinner. Later that night we set up a tour from our hotel to go caimen hunting (searching not killing).
After sunset we head out in a boat with two guides. One stood on the front of the boat with a flashlight. He could spot the eyes of the caimen because they glow in the dark. The bigger ones disappeared pretty quickly once we got close, but the smaller ones didnt know any better. Julio Cesar, the guide, captured one and brought it on board for us to see. It was so cute, about a month old and pretty calm. He squirmed a bit at first, but then let us poke and prod at him, poor thing. The entire trip, which lasted a couple of hours, we asked Julio Cesar all sorts of morbid questions like, "How many people get attacked by crocodiles or sharks a year? How often does the river flood? How many people die drowning in the river each year? How many boating accidents are there?" HIs answers were kind of boring...seems like a pretty safe place to live. I think he thought we were crazy Managuans, or worse, crazy gringas! We went down this really beautiful tributary, it was calm and quiet and quite enchanting. We saw this really huge fish surface, the guide said it was a prehistoric-type fish. It was a magical evening.
The next morning we took an early morning canoe ride down the tributary through the town of Sabalos, which is on both sides of the river bank. It was quiet and peaceful. We saw some beautiful birds and even a pair of monkeys climbing high in the tree tops. Later we went to an Organic Cacao Cooperative in Sabalos. They get the cacao seeds from many small cooperative farms along the river. They ferment and dry out the seeds. I am not sure if they roast them, or if that is done by the chocolate manufacturer. The guy who showed us around was a cacao genius! He says he does not drink coffee, or alcohol and does not smoke in order to keep his taste buds in their best condition to taste test the cacao. The fermenting process was kinda gross, but later we were able to toast some seeds and try them out and it was delicious. When the guy tasted it he closed his eyes and said all the flavors he tasted and the % in which he tasted them. Kinda like one of those wine tasting snobs. But he must be super healthy, besides laying off smoking and booze, I saw (on Dr Oz maybe) that cacao is the 2nd best thing you can put in your body after water, I don't know if its true, but I would like to believe it is! Anyway, their biggest buyer is a German company called Ritter Sport, which I have seen before. It is amazing how so much of delicious "European" chocolate we buy is really from Central America originally. I was also amazed how this little, almost kind of primative cooperative is able to produce so much quality organic cacao. They were really organized and meticulous about what they did, which was especially impressive to me because I feel like I don't often see that in Nicaragua and did not expect to see it in the countryside.
I was sad to leave and hope I can return again. The people at the hotel were so kind and helpful. The people were soft spoken, yet warm and friendly. Very different from what I am used to in Managua, but I guess this is true of anywhere you go, city people are more hard and cold, country people are more kind and welcoming. Unfortunately this kindness does not seem to extend even to San Carlos, which is by no means a city. Before getting on the bus in San Carlos, I tried to find a bathroom. I had just been on a boat for 2 hours and had a 6-8 hour bus ride ahead of me, a bathroom was essential! I asked around a few places near the bus and they turned me away. Finally I found this comedor/hostel type place and the guy outside said there was a bathroom. But when I kindly asked the woman inside she turned me away, even after she surely saw the desperation in my face! Vicky, taking pity on me and needing a bathroom herself, set off to see what she could find. She eventually convinced the same woman to let her use the bathroom, and I was able to go back again, and she let me in as well. This did not leave a good impression of San Carlos on me! Apparently, others feel the same way, my Moon guidebook says people "try to make their stay here as short as possible" and quotes writer Eduard Marriot in saying San Carlos is "a place where the air smelled sour...where dead animals lay unremarked in the streets for days; where each day felt hotter than the last; where things of all kinds felt near their end" and I will add, where people reluctantly let you use their bathroom, even when its an emergency!
The bus ride home was much quicker than the way down. We only made one long stop along the way. The music was better as well, it was again insanely loud, but the driver was playing rica bachata, atleast until it got late and I wanted to fall asleep, then he started playing obnoxious rancheras. Ayyyyyy! The important thing is we got back to Managua safely and had an amazing trip. I am excited to share Rio San Juan with my next visitor! Who will it be?
