|
Volume 60
30 December 2001
Nicaragua
On Boxing Day, December
26th, we poked our noses out of Bahia Santa Elena to find seas like
glass for twenty miles north to San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. The
coastal landscape was low but pretty with no sign of the mountain
ranges we were used to in Costa Rica, so that the abrupt high bluffs
framing the entrance to the bay were particularly striking.
 San
Juan del Sur (11*15N; 085*52W) is a beach resort town as reminiscent
of the Caribbean style as anything we have seen on the Pacific side.
The beach curves in a long caramel arc with beachgoers bobbing and
laughing in the waves as they roll ashore. At the south end is a
big port facility catering to the fishing industry; to the left
of it is a colorful town behind a string of tidy beach restaurants;
further along is an empty stretch of beach where a small river interrupts
the sweep of sand, beyond which stretches more beach with fancy
houses behind. The harbor is mostly filled with fishing vessels
from pangas, to sportfish runabouts, to shrimpers. Visiting sailboats
like Tackless II are relegated to the outer fringe. Its a little
strange to bob at anchor gently behind the roar of the breakers!
The Port Captain and
his aide came out to the boat to check us in. Many people skip this
charming anchorage because they dont want to deal with the hassle
of clearing in and out, Nicaragua being a country you can sail right
through in a day and a half. Had we just wanted to stop for the
night, and maybe take in a dinner at a seaside restaurant, I think
the Port Captain would have waived the paperwork, which would have
saved us some fees. However we were so taken with the prospect before
us, especially with New Years Eve seeming close at hand (the Port
Captain assured us there would be a fete with fireworks) that we
hemmed and hawed our way into making a real stop of it.
You may recall that Nicaragua
was embroiled in the Contra War as late as the late 1980s. Or you
may not recall. Or you may not have ever really understood what
was going on down here. We certainly didnt. Even with the crutch
of the summary in our Lonely Planet Guide, it is not easy to sort
out. Suffice it to say, US/Nicaragua relations were not wonderful
back then, with unpleasant embargoes, CIA manipulations and, of
course the infamous Ollie North Iran-Contra arms deal. Given all
this, you might wonder what kind of reception Americans might expect.
 The
Port Captain and his aide WERE in fatigues, blue camies to be precise,
giving a very military first impression, and they did conduct a
pretty thorough search of all closed spaces on Tackless II, in particular
those below the floor boards. However it was all done in a most
friendly manner, over a couple of Coca Colas, and although their
Spanish was particularly opaque, we clearly got an impression of
hospitality and welcome.
Indeed ashore we found
many Americans, some young backpacking touristas but others well-established
residents! We were surprised by this, although as it is a fairly
short hop from Northern Costa Rica which is very Americanized, perhaps
we shouldnt have been.
Upon arrival in the anchorage
we were adopted by Sid of sv Ivy Rose. Sid is an American sailor
who has found himself single-handing thanks to late-in-life circumstances,
a situation that we are seeing more often on this coast than we
did in the Caribbean. Sids solution is to hire on crew - either
single ladies over thirty and under fifty who answer his ads in
sailing rags back home and are willing to fly off to parts south
OR, when all else fails, young backpackers looking for some adventure.
For  one
reason or another, hes been in this area long enough to know his
way around, and he walked us around the charming town taking us
to his favorite restaurants, tiendas and bars all of which were
run by women! At the end of our first afternoon with Sid, however,
we discovered the one hitch to San Juan del Sur. Although the harbor
provides a launch (read tippy little one-lung-er wooden fishing
boat encircled in fenders) to ferry you in and out from the port,
the launch ceases running at 6pm! Your alternatives are to launch
your own dinghy and deal with it in the breakers on the long tidal
beach, stay ashore for the night (which involves not only a hotel
room but the hiring of a cuidadore to stay aboard and guard your
boat while you are absent) OR to be home by sunset! Suddenly, New
Years Eve at San Juan del Sure was losing its draw.
 Still,
the next morning we met our cab driver for a 30-minute trip to Immigration
at the frontier to complete the formalities of entering into Nicaragua.
What might seem like it would be a real inconvenience, was in some
respects a highlight of our trip, because I got my wish to see Lake
Nicaragua. Lake Nicaragua, covering 8624 square miles, is the largest
lake in Central America, the third largest lake in Latin America,
and was a major, if not the leading candidate ( along with
Panama and the Tehuantepec) for the location of the trans-isthmus
canal project in the late 19th century. Connected to the Caribbean
by the navigable Rio San Juan, the Lake Nicaragua was separated
from the Pacific by only 20 miles of low hills. Before the Panama
Canal was built, miners bound for the Gold Rush in California routinely
cruised to Nicaragua and up the river to the lake, descending to
San Juan del Sur by railroad. It truly seemed the most logical place
to build a canal. One of the arguments that really put paid the
idea was that Nicaragua was a land of volcanoes. Stamps displaying
Nicaraguas volcanoes spewing forth were sent to all the members
of Congress prior to the vote. As the highway our taxi was following
south swung lakeside, we were treated to the striking view of two
very impressive volcanoes, Vulcan Concepcion and Vulcan Maderas
rising straight up out of the lake itself! (In actuality they share
a small island.) It was a vista well worth the price of the trip.
 We
ended up staying in San Juan del Sur four days. We walked the beach,
we bought vegies at the central market, negotiated for the local
Flor de Caqa rum at corner teindas, watched the college students
of Nicaragua act like holiday-ing college students anywhere, and
ate seafood dishes at beachside palapas. As charming as it was,
we couldnt last until New Years.
So, two days before New
Years Eve we checked out and sailed north along the coast, in the
first and only drizzly day we have seen in hundreds of miles, dodging
daisy chains of fishing pangas hand-lining for red snapper and admiring
the parade of conical volcanoes rising inland. Twenty six miles
along, we ducked into a cruiser refuge for a nights sleep at anchor,
before continuing on the next day on a 166-mile, 30-hour leg that
would bring us to El Salvador.
|
