Lakes and Rivers

Hells Angels?

Ferry across Cocibolca

Egrets in a tree

 

Pulling in to El Castillo

We arrived today in El Castillo, a small town on the Río San Juan after a 14 hour water journey. The San Juan River is the main drainage from Cocibolca (Lake Nicaragua). During the late 1800´s, U.S. engineers determined that the best canal route across Central America would be up the San Juan River, across Cocibolca, then across the thin flat land bridge to the Pacific. During the 1880´s, while the French flailed in Panama, the U.S. stood by and watched. After the turn of the century, legislation was initiated to build a Nicaragua canal. Ultimately this was scrapped when a French used canal salesman, Philippe Buneau-Varilla successfully managed to convince Teddy Roosevelt and key congressman to buy the Panama idea.

We left our Hotel in the morning by motorcycle and made a couple of stops along the island. Our favorite spot was "Ojo del Agua" (eye of water) which is a natural mineral springs with crystal clear water. Absolutely beautiful. We spent and hour there, then took off for more riding. In the end we made it to Altagracia which is the port where the ferry boat stops. The boat goes up and down the lake twice a week, and we caught the southbound boat for San Carlos (see map). We arrived in San Carlos at 6am after attempting to sleep during the the trip. We then had some breakfast, then headed down the river for a 3 hour trip to El Castillo. We saw many herons, grey and white, living in a lovely river jungle.

El Castillo is a town on the river, centered around a fort that was established in the 1700's to stop British and French pirates from stealing more Spanish gold. The river flows by, quite broad and somewhat brown. Today we mostly rested, washed our very dirty clothes, and managed to Skype to home. We also arranged with some other travelers to do some wildlife viewing tonight and tomorrow.

After that we will be heading back up the river to San Carlos, then south to Costa Rica and a flight home.