Up Creek and Paddling



Chicken bus heaven

A feature of Central America, that initially causes amusement and the swiftly becomes everyday, is the use of decommissioned US school buses as a primary means of transport. The Chicken bus, so called either because you're packed in like battery farmed chickens or because you're more than likely to be accompanied by a few. feature more often in the life of a traveler than rice and beans.

But eventually you do tire of the posters of the Virgin Mary, the written exclamations 'Jesus es el Señor' and the old ladies who cackling hand you a mango as you alight. So Rachel and I, in the last week have entirely swapped buses in favour of boats. It started with a quick one hour hop over to Isla de Ometepe- a twin volcanoed island in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua. After climbing a volcano and relaxing in a hacienda entirely staffed by flirting fifteen year olds we set off in search of the holy grail. A town that could only be reached by boat, El Castillo on the 'mighty' Rio San Juan!

It says something about a place when the easiest way to get there is by a twelve hour boat across an eerie, misty lake followed by a three hour (one and a half express) lancha up the river. However finally, after zig zagging across the river to pick up and drop off all of Nicaragua, you reach a bend and there stands El Castillo. One road lined with wooden stilt houses nestled in verdant rain forest and perched above it all the crumbling fort that gives the town its name.

 So enamored by boats have we become that our tearful goodbye to Nicaragua could only be conducted by boat. Stamping out in San Carlos we glided down the nomansland of the Rio Frio before stamping in at Los Chiles, Costa Rica and much to our consternation... getting on a bus.

Captain Jack Sparrow hell

You realise you've gone a bit off track when the toothless old man who runs your hotel apologises that there's no running water upstairs but if we need to brush our teeth there's plenty downstairs (and gestures to the river), but tiny, sleepy El Castillo does get its fair share of visitors. Principally for acting like and imagined town out of Pirate story.



El Castillo de la Inmaculada Concepciòn de Maria (the fort) was originally built by the Spanish as a river block (it overlooks a set of fairly nasty rapids) to catch pirates as they snuck up and down from the Caribbean to the wealthy city of Granada who would otherwise be carting off the gold they themselves were carting back to Queen Isabel in Spain. At some point we, the British, got in on the act, took the castle and started making it difficult for both the Spanish and the Pirates.



The entire town.



History dispensed with by the morning we chose to sample El Castillo's other delight, kayaking. After tackling the rapids that make El Castillo so strategic (an experience complicated by the drybag of cameras clipped to Rachel's chest) we enjoed a peacful paddle through the Rio San Juan's tributaries and waterways. The air punctuated by unknown birds, unseen monkeys and the ocassional river turtle fleeing from our amateur splashing we seemed a world and an age away from dusty Leon and chi-chi Granada.