Indio Maiz Jungle Reserve- Saturday

My 5:30 alarm wasn’t needed due to the 5 pm wake up call of howlers monkeys on the south bank of the river and the clumsy bumbling of two French fishermen dropping their fishing gear as they made their way past my room to their waiting boat,

  Coffee was waiting for me when I made my way to the front of the hotel and by the time the clock had rolled around to 5:45 Don Julio was waiting for me down by the hotel dock.

 After paddling back to town to pick up Marissa we set off down the Rio San Juan for the town of El Castillo. The trip took a little over an hour and a half as we paddled from bank to bank observing the scenery.

  Rounding the final bend of the river, the fortress appeared as a large and very impressive stone citadel looming over the surrounding village. Built in 1602 to protect the area from pirates, the fortress is featured in many tourist posters of Nicaragua but is visited by relatively few tourists.

  Trading our canoe for a 25 foot panga [wide, flat-bottomed boat, traditionally dugouts but now often fibreglass ] we “rented” rubber boots from a store in town, ordered our lunch in advance at one of the hotels and grabbed a couple of coffees at Borders Coffee

( no relation to the bookstore)

 After skirting the Radel El Diablo ( the Devil’s Rapids) we continued down the river for close to an hour before pulling to the north bank at the mouth of the Rio Bartola. There we had to register at the military post before we were allowed to enter the reserve. We spent two hours hiking through jungle/rain forest in an area known as the Refugio de Vida Silvestre. Essentially a two-mile border of the Indio-Maiz Biosphere it is as close as one can get to an Amazon experience without actually going to the Amazon. As we walked we could hear torrential rain above us, but the canopy was so tight that nothing reached ground level. Unfortunately the rain drove most of the local wildlife undercover so we saw little in the way of animal movement.

  Returning to the military post we pulled off our muddied footwear and rejoined our boat operator for a trip up the Rio Bartola to observe a variety of birds, monkeys and aquatic mammals which they called pero de agua  (water dogs) but were unable to offer an English equivalent name.

 Upon returning to El Castillo town, we enjoyed an impressive lunch of fish and “river lobster’ The latter looked like crayfish but the tail section held about 50gm of meat so was more like a small lobster. Time did not permit a visit to the fortress proper- that’s first on tomorrow’s agenda.

   Our ride back to town involved tossing our (borrowed) canoe on top of the “mailboat” i.e. the 2pm slow boat to San Carlos then riding in the same back to Sabalos.

  By the time I returned to the hotel, to clean up wash clothing and shower, it was close to 4pm. Recognizing one of the boats from La Esquina, I was surprised to see the two Canadian couples and their fishing guides arriving for supper and an overnight stay at the hotel. Somewhat disappointed with the service and food quality after I left, they have all but convinced me not to return there as I had originally planned. Perhaps instead, a change of hotel and a day exploring another Reserve/Sanctuary or perhaps an early start to my trip North.