Last weekend, my friend Connie and I went to the south of Nicaragua to see Rio San Juan. The river runs along the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and we’d heard it was beautiful. We set off Thursday afternoon, and after a 9 hour journey (I’d rather not relive it here, if you don’t mind…) we stayed in the town of San Carlos for the night. San Carlos sits on the mouth of the Rio San Juan where it meets Lake Nicaragua. There wasn’t a lot going on there at 12:30 at night, and we were relieved to find a hostel after the one we reserved didn’t open its doors for us.
On Friday morning, a cool breeze from the lake greeted us as we ate a typical Nicaraguan breakfast--scrambled eggs, gallo pinto, and Nica cheese--while overlooking a busy park next to the riverbank.
 |
| Rio San Juan at San Carlos |
 |
| From our breakfast spot. |
 |
| Riverboat! |
We then took a riverboat even farther south to El Castillo, a cozy river town that was used as a fortress for the English and Spanish in the 16th and 17th centuries when pirates from the Caribbean came up the river trying to take over this area. I saw no Jack Sparrow memorial at the fortress, but it was still cool. Besides a lot of great reviews from Lonely Planet, we found very little to do in town. We visited a butterfly farm, took walks, saw some local teenagers play baseball, and tried most of the restaurants on the main little strip.
 |
| The town of El Castillo |
 |
| La Fortaleza |
The highlight of the trip was our jungle tour on Saturday morning. Our guide, Orlando, showed us frogs, birds, huge ants that can chomp holes in your shirt (he chose my already tattered t-shirt to demonstrate), and amazing plants and trees. We trekked off the path for a while looking for a toucan and I got my rented boots very muddy and wet. It was fantastic.
 |
| We took a boat to the jungle reserve. This is the border of Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Notice all the little Nicaraguan flags in the ground to the right. |
 |
| With Orlando in the thick of it. |
 |
| After a nice swim in an inlet. |
The nights were cool, and we ate dinner Friday and Saturday night al fresco at Border’s Coffee which, despite the very American sounding name, was very rustic. The owner was a gregarious blonde Nicaraguan man who brought out lanterns when a power outage engulfed us in darkness for about a half hour on Friday. He welcomed us back on Saturday, and we feasted on pasta with white sauce and garlic and spent a few hours chatting about everything under the sun and moon and stars.
Sunday, we got up at 4am to catch the 5:15am riverboat to San Carlos. After another long, long bus ride, we finally got back to our neck of the woods. We ate street food for dinner, and I'm convinced there's nothing like a good portion of gallo pinto and tostones to settle an exhausted but invigorated soul.
No comments:
Post a Comment