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SUNDAY, AUGUST ,8 2010 No ‘unpeopled paradise,’ but Nicaragua retains its charm nicaragua from F1


Calaveras County” had earned the previous year. He didn’t know what the fu-


ture held, but at 31, he had high hopes. I want to see how much this


part of Nicaragua has changed since he was here. Even more, since I have a first book of my own coming out soon, I want to share his excitement — and per- haps some of his good fortune. I’ve brought along Twain’s ac-


count of the trip, a series of letters published in the San Francisco Alta California newspaper. At the time of his crossing,


Nicaragua was torn by civil war. The route he followed was a trail of pirates, forty-niners and counterrevolutionaries, the path of a planned transoceanic canal that never came into being—but probably should have. Today, the route he took runs


through a country not in revolu- tion, but in evolution. Tourism is growing faster inNicaragua than anywhere else in Central Ameri- ca; safety-wise, it’s second only to its tourist-magnet neighbor, Cos- ta Rica.


Heading lakeward Twain arrived in San Juan del


Sur, on the west coast of Nicara- gua, on Dec. 29, 1866, to find “a few tumble-down frame shanties — they call them hotels — nest- ling among green verdure.” Shirt- less locals packing two-foot Bow- ie knivesmilled around the land- ing. Mules, horses and “ambu- lances,” or wagons, waited to carry the 400-odd passengers across the 12-mile isthmus to Lake Nicaragua, the largest lake in Central America. From there they would de-


scend the San Juan River to the CaribbeanSea and board another steamer for New York, saving weeks, if not months, off a cross- country journey. Because of its dazzling seaside


settings and relatively affordable — by gringo standards — real estate, San Juan del Sur has recently become one of Nicara- gua’smost popular destinations. The country’s southern Pacific


beaches were also one of the main draws for the town’s most recent arrivals: the cast and crew of “Survivor: Nicaragua,” which started filming nearby in June. The show is expected to infuse more than $6 million into the local economy, including work for 200 locals. Over a classic Central Ameri-


canbreakfast of strong coffee and gallo pinto — literally “spotted rooster,” a filling fried mixture of rice and black beans — I ponder how best to match Twain’s “jolly little scamper across the Isth- mus.” He and seven companions


chose a faded red ambulance — “mud wagons we call themin the mountains” — drawn by four scrawny mules, “miraculous scarecrows,” whose driver beat and cursed them relentlessly the entire way. The 31/2


-hour journey to the


lake gave them plenty of time to enjoy the fragrant air and the birds and monkeys in the trees. Twain ogled the “raven-haired, splendid-eyed Nicaragua dam- sels” selling fruit and drinks along the roadside. The smooth, level road came


courtesy of Cornelius Vander- bilt’sAccessoryTransitCompany, which had established the route acrossNicaragua during the Cali- fornia gold rush. It was shorter, faster and


cheaper than crossing Panama. In the 1850s, at the height of the gold rush, some 2,000 people were paying $300 each to tra- verse Nicaragua everymonth. An old U.S. school bus, the


workhorse of Central American public transportation, is the clos- est I can find to awagon. Sun and rain alternate abruptly, as though someone were flipping a switch, as we cross the board-flat strip of land between the ocean and the lake. Schoolchildren inwhite shirts


and navy pants and skirts walk along the road, past farmhouses bordered by coconut and mango trees. The driver steers around bulls, dogs and two-wheeled carts drawn by skeletal horses. After Twain’s group passed an


advertisement for “Ward’s shirts” nailed to a tree, the men decried “all such people, who invade all sacred places with their rascally signs, and mar every landscape.” Today the ads are for cellphone companies, bottled water and real estate. (“New houses from $58,000!”) The twin rounded peaks of


Ometepe Island rise above the horizon from the center of Lake Nicaragua. At 3,191 squaremiles, the lake is more than twice the size of Rhode Island. Nicaragua is a country drawn


by a child: bordered by oceans, filled with jungles and volcanoes


ALAMY Mark Twain’s route across Nicaragua included a stop at El Castillo, which today is a carless village with an imposing fort above. America North D.C. NICARAGUA


Pacific Ocean


HONDURAS 0 MILES NICARAGUA Managua


Pacific Ocean


San Juan del Sur


Lake


Nicaragua Ometepe


100


Atlantic Ocean


South America


to spend your 38th birthday, even alone.


Edge of the jungle Recurring squalls keep me


indoors most of the next day. Every hour or so, a great wind leads adark line of rainacross the lake to shore. An overnight ferry leaves in


San Juan del Norte


M.K. CANNISTRA/THE WASHINGTON POST COSTA RICA


JULIAN SMITH FOR THE WASHINGTON POST


Motorized boats have replaced the steam paddle-wheelers of Twain’s time as public transportation on the San Juan River.


and a giant lake — and two volcanoes inthe lake.Concepcion andMaderas, a pair ofmountains joined by ancient lava flows, make up the hourglass-shaped island. Both peaks wear toupees of clouds. As he rode a small steamship


across the lake, Twain marveled at the “two magnificent pyra- mids, clad in the softest and richest green, all necked with shadow and sunshine.” He bypassed the island, but


the modern ferry route stops at Ometepe, so I’ll have to spend the night there. Water sloshes around the floor of the boat aswe chug through wind-whipped whitecaps. The railings are grooved from


decades of sliding ropes. In the pilothouse, I ask the captain in Spanish how old the ferry is. “Let’s see,” he says. “The ’60s.


No, wait — the ’50s. But we’ve made a few repairs since then!”


The ‘sweet sea’ Ever since the 17th century,


when the first sailing ships rounded the southernmost tip of South America, sailors and mer- chants have dreamed of connect- ing the Atlantic and the Pacific across the narrowneck ofCentral America. On a map, Nicaragua seems


like the most obvious place to do it, with the lake and, from its southeast corner, the San Juan River flowing to the Caribbean. But in the mid-19th century,


when canal-building technology had finally caught up with the dreams, Nicaragua was in the midst of civil war. An American military adventurer named Wil- liam Walker even had himself elected president for a year in 1856. By the turn of the century,


Teddy Roosevelt had set his sights on an alternate route — through Panama, then part of Colombia — that the French had started to dig but had aban- doned. The United States helped Panamadeclare its independence from Colombia in 1903, bought out the French effort for $40 millionthenext year andfinished the canal in 1914. If things had gone differently,


this lakewould be a very different place. As we near Concepcion, I shudder to imagine thousand- foot-long cargo ships churning across theMar Dulce, the “Sweet Sea,” day and night. With its rich volcanic soils,


lush forests and abundance of pre-Columbian stone carvings, Ometepe was chosen as Nicara-


DETAILS


GETTING THERE Continental has one-stop flights from Dulles to Managua, with fares starting at $688 round trip.


WHERE TO STAY Hotel Villa Paraiso Santo Domingo Beach, Ometepe Island


011-505-2569-4859 www.villaparaiso.com.ni Comfortable cabins, with air- conditioning and satellite TV, starting at $48.


Hotel Albergue El Castillo El Castillo


011-505-8924-5608 hotel.alberguelcastillo@yahoo.com A two-story hotel with hardwood balconies overlooking the town and the river. Rooms for $15 per person, including breakfast.


Hotelito Evo San Juan del Norte 011-505-2583-9019 evohotel@yahoo.es Clean rooms with mosquito nets for $15.


WHERE TO EAT Border’s Coffee El Castillo


011-505-8408-0688 Great drinks and a full cafe menu on the town’s main plaza. Plates are $3 and up.


Villa Paraiso Playa Santo Domingo, Ometepe Island


011-505-563-4675 Beachfront restaurant worth a stop even if you don’t stay there. Seafood and other dishes starting at $7.


Restaurante Mirador Between main plaza and Malecon, San Carlos An outdoor patio overlooking the lake, and old Spanish cannons add ambiance. Super-fresh seafood from $5.


WHAT TO DO Ometepe Guides Union Moyogalpa, Ometepe Island 011-05-827-7714 www.ugometepe.com A cooperative of independent local tour guides, most of whom speak English. Half-day tours are $25- $35 per person.


Nena Lodge&Tours El Castillo


011-505-821-2135 www.nenalodge.com An experienced ecotourism operator with many options for jungle excursions, including canoe fishing from $15 per person. Night tours and farm visits are $40 and up.


Nicaragua Adventures 011-505-2552-8461 www.nica-adventures.com A Granada-based tour company that can help plan an entire trip.


INFORMATION www.visitanicaragua.com


—J.S.


the evening for San Carlos, at the head of the San Juan River. A string of kung fu movies blares from the TV in the lounge. At least there are enough padded benches for almost everyone to stretch out on. Twain described his 12-hour lake crossing as “not particularly speedy, but very comfortable.” I’d agree with the first part. At San Carlos, I share a bleary-


eyed breakfast with Erik Nelson, a Canadian retiree. Later, we walk along the town’s newly re- stored Malecon, a grassy prome- nade where the lake meets the river. SanCarlos is surprisinglywell


kept for an edge-of-the-jungle town, with lots of police. Its facelift is part of a $15 million investment in tourism facilities along the San Juan River corri- dor, another Biosphere Reserve. Three new tourism centers, five new border posts, a bridge over the river andnewairports for San Carlos and San Juan delNorte on the Caribbean coast are all in the works. Visitors often describe Nicaragua as “how Costa Rica used to be,” and the government hopes that these new projects will help narrowthe gap between the two countries. Twain headed straight down-


river in a double-decked stern- wheeler, a foreign cousin of the Mississippi riverboats of his youth.The boat passeda forested island that had formed around a steamboat scuttled by Walker during his campaign to take over the country. Even though the San Juan


flows through one of the most isolated parts ofNicaragua, it has seen plenty of action. From the 17th century on, foreign pirates and armies used it as a 120-mile highway to reach the rich trading center of Granada, at the west end of Lake Nicaragua. In the 1980s, U.S.-backed con-


tra forces operating out of Costa Rica fought in the forests with Sandinista government troops. Nicaragua’s southeast corner


today isn’t quite the “unpeopled paradise” that Twain saw—cattle farms and jungle lodges dot the riverbanks — but it does encom- pass the second-largest tropical reserve in the country, the 1,225- square-mile Indio-Maiz Biologi- calReserve. It’sCentralAmerica’s version of the Amazon. I find a seat on a panga, one of


the long, narrow motorized ca- noes that serve as public buses on the river. I’m wedged between a pair of nuns and a man in the blue uniform of the national po- lice, whose presence I trust to ward off disaster and hijacking. We putter down the mocha-


JULIAN SMITH FOR THE WASHINGTON POST


The recently restoredMalecon (shoreside promenade) at San Carlos, where the San Juan River meets Lake Nicaragua.


gua’s third UNESCO Biosphere Reserve this year. If you like waterfall hikes, kayaking throughmangroves, or just quiet isolation, this is the place for you. I treat myself to a beachfront


cabin at the Villa Paraiso hotel at Santo Domingo Beach, on the


narrowstrip of land between the volcanoes. There’s a hammock on the porch and flowers on the bedspread. The beach is shallow, the vol-


canic sand fine and dark. The afternoon grows golden, and I decide that there are worse ways


colored flow, past farmhouses on stilts and trees full of cormorants drying stubby wings in the sun. Twain’s description of the scen- ery still holds true: “All the shapes and forms and figures known to architecture, wrought in the pliant, leafy vines, and thrown together in reckless, en- chanting confusion.”


Fortress by the river It takes three hours to reachEl


JULIAN SMITH FOR THE WASHINGTON POST


Apoison dart frog in the forests along the lower San Juan River.


Castillo, a small town next to one of the biggest sets of rapids onthe river. They’re more ripples than white water, but they were big enough to slow down pirates and enemy ships on their way to sack Granada. That’s why Spanish co- lonial authorities built El Castillo de la Inmaculada Concepcion on a hilltop above town in 1675. I trudge uphill to the fort,


whose restored ruins are still imposing, with massive walls of dark stone and a chapel as large as the barracks. According to the museum, in


1762, the 19-year-old daughter of the local commander took over when her father was wounded and successfully repelled a Brit- ish fleet, all while in her night- gown. A young Horatio Nelson captured the fort 18 years later. I need a boost after the walk,


so I finda coffee shoponthemain plaza. The owner, 29-year-old Yamil Obregón Bustos, pours a perfect cappuccino and tells me about his struggle to open Bor- der’s Coffee two years ago. As an openly gay man, he


faced hostility and harassment from police and residents, he said. He hired a lawyer and won what turned out to be a landmark case for gay rights in Nicaragua. El Castillo is cute and carless


—the only access is by boat—and Imay be the only tourist here. Twain’s group had to disem-


bark,walk around the rapids and board another stern-wheeler to continue downstream. They tied up for the night 30miles fromthe coast. “Those who had ham- mocks swung them, and those who hadn’t made beds of their overcoats,” Twain wrote.


End of the road Another three hours brings


me to San Juan delNorte, a small, quiet town near themouth of the river. It started a few miles away as the busy British port of Grey- town, the eastern terminus of Twain’s route. He arrived on New Year’s Eve


to find a settlement of Ameri- cans, Spaniards, Germans, Eng- lish, Jamaicans and nativeMiski- to Indians. Beds cost a dollar a night. It wasn’t much to look at, he


wrote, but “its comeliness is greatly enhanced, I may say is rendered gorgeous, by the cluster of stern-wheel steamboats at the water front.” After being repeatedly flat-


tened by, among other things, hurricanes, the river, the contra army and the U.S. Navy, Grey- town was relocated and re- named. (It was officially re-re- named San Juan de Nicaragua in 2002, but everyone still calls it San Juan del Norte.) All that remains of the origi-


nal settlement is the cemetery, where time and the jungle are slowly digesting 150-year-old headstones. The old main street is now a grass-covered landing strip. In themaze of lagoons nearby


are a half-sunken Sandinista plane and the 100-foot tower of a steam-powered dredge, rusting into art. Then the brawny waves of the Caribbean. Twain embarked forNewYork


on the first day of 1867, bound for success. That year he would pub- lish “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Stories,” travel to Europe and the Middle East to gather material for his next book, “The Innocents Abroad,” andmeet his future wife. I still have to decide whether


I’m quite up yet for a whole day on a panga heading back upriver. Maybe first I’ll make like a local and try a little costaneando, just a ramble along the coast. Who knows what Imay find. travel@washpost.com


Smith is the author of “Crossing the Heart of Africa,” coming in December from Harper Perennial.


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