Central America is well renowned for its “chicken buses”, essentially old, worn-out school buses from the US that get a second lease on life transporting the good folk of Central America and their produce (including animals, hence the name) from one place to another. They are all dilapidated (though brightly coloured) without any creature…
If you do not enjoy: unbelievable heat stifling humidity drowning in your own sweat steep inclines using your arms/hands as much as your legs/feet when you hike getting muddy hiking Volcán Maderas on the Island of Ometepe is not for you! Started out at 8am (much later than I would have wanted, but that was the…
There’s something about horse riding that is really special. If there is an opportunity to go horse riding I usually take it, so this morning I headed out with Ayssar (guide) and Rosita (my horse) for a few hours near San Ramón on the southern end of Ometepe. Specifically we went to check out some of the…
My last night on the Río San Juan was spent in luxury in San Carlos – I had air-conditioning! Lapped that up for as long as I could (11:30am the next morning) and then headed out to San Carlos airport to catch my La Costeña flight to Ometepe. The airport building was quite literally a…
Stayed at the Hotel Sábalos for 2 nights on my way back up the river to San Carlos. I highly recommend it if you are going to stay at Boca de Sábalos – Maricela is wonderful and friendly, first warm shower I’ve had in 2 weeks, the fried fish and the pancakes are amazing and…
The Bartola Refugio is located right where the Río Bartola meets the Río San Juan and the Costa Rican border and is right on the boundary of the Indio-Maíz Reserve. They have lots of hiking trails and a couple of canoes for guests to use, so I headed out onto the river both mornings I was there…
Although I couldn’t get all the way down the Río San Juan, I wanted to go as far as possible. So from El Castillo I headed down to the Refugio Bartola (about 8 km further on) where there is a rustic hotel, plenty of hiking trails and the Río Bartola to explore. It is right on the boundary…
My original plan in coming to the Río San Juan was to travel the whole length of the river from San Carlos to San Juan del Norte (alternatively known as San Juan de Nicaragua or Greytown). What I didn’t count on was that after 3 years of drought, and at the end of summer, both…
Did you know that you can see the Southern Cross and Pointers from Nicaragua? I was really very, very surprised to discover this the other night! Very, very low on the horizon – but there they were, peeking out from between the tree branches at the Albergue Celentiname where we spent the night on…
Apart from kayaking around the Solentiname islands, the other thing I was keen to do was visit the artisans who are renowned for their balsa carvings and primitivist paintings. The main population of artisans is found on the largest island – Isla Marrancón – so we visited the first afternoon we spent in the Archipelago….