Rio San Juan

Over the Sandinista Revolution Holiday, I aprovechared the long weekend to visit my friend Tucker on the other side of the country: I live an hour from Honduras, she lives an hour from Costa Rica. Entonces, I traveled down to Managua(3 hours) to catch the overnight bus to San Carlos, Tucker’s site. The bus left at 6:30 pm and we arrived in San Carlos at 2pm. The 8 hour bus ride makes my measly 3 hour commute to Managua seem like a cake walk.

On my first day in Rio San Juan(the name of the department), Tucker and I caught the three hour boat to El Castillo. As we traveled down Rio San Juan(the name of the river), it was amazing to me seeing the different style of houses. While most keep the same “architecture” as most Nica houses, some of the water front houses were built on stilts, and a few letrines just emptied into the river. El Castillo is a tiny waterfront town with a historic fort built to fight the Spanish back in the day. First, we went to the fachenta hotel to have river shrimp, which are more like tiny lobsters. Living in the north I have virtually no access to seafood, so I definitely took advantage of my time in the south, eating shrimp, ceviche, and lots of fish.

San Carlos is in a beautiful location, surrounded by water on three sides. It sits on Lake Nicaragua, Nicaragua’s biggest lake, into which both Rio San Juan and Rio Frio empty. Unfortunately, a lot of my time in RSJ was rainy; however, that made it much cooler so the temperatures were bearable. Normally, RSJ is one of the hottest departments in the country. During my few days with Tuck, we went to the mirador to look out at the lake, the rivers, and the archipelago Solentiname in the lake; we hung around the mueys or piers; and ate at restaurants looking over the water.

RSJ is a beautiful, yet isolated department that really epitomizes what you think of when you think of a poor Latin American country. Water, bright colors, thick jungle, but also extreme poverty.