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| Essay Archive | January 19, 2003 |
BENEATH AN ENDLESS SKY
Exploring Nicaragua's Río San Juan in Motorboat
Above the drone of the outboard motor I could hear Roseando laughing. It was a roar of happiness, approval and real freedom. Roseando, a Rama Indian from the tiny island of Rama Cay, was on the throttle hard and his little motorboat wove us around trees, rocks, stumps, water grass and reflections of a stormy sky. Roseando was barefoot and driving the boat at speeds that would scare most anyone, arriving at breakneck pace to a narrow water-filled opening in the forest, massaging the throttle and then throwing the boat on its side to shoot narrow gaps in virgin backcountry rivers. Entering one corner he overcooked the boat and we flew sideways into the grass directly at a giant wood stump, then at the last second he pulled us straight with engine torque. When the boat was past the stump I glanced back at him, knowing that we had almost become rain forest debris. He erupted into a howling laugh. It was a chuckle that ripped the air, like a tropical storm that resonated from Roseando's chest, burst out of his semi-toothless grin and blew back across through his long black hair. I smiled back, amused, elated and on the verge of terror. We were coming back from a secret place, a rain forest lake that few had seen. Leaving the secret lake, flying through countless rain forest switchbacks with Roseando happily full on the throttle, I reflected on that dream like place, a place so wild, so untouched, that to this day it has left me speechless.
The hidden lake, called Laguna Silico and unmentioned in all of my maps of Nicaragua, is located one hour in a motorboat (driven at Roseando's stuntman speeds) from the magnificent Bahia de San Juan de Norte, at the Caribbean finish of Nicaragua's spectacular and historic Río San Juan. December brought me to the mighty San Juan River as a guide, on a trip of the river complete, from Lake Nicaragua to the Caribbean Sea. A journey that I always continue to cherish long after it is over. The memories of the Río San Juan bathe my conscious with deep-focus images of an endless sky reflected in the mirror darkness of its jungle waters. After the trip my subconscious remains traveling down rich passages of the river and its tributaries for weeks on end, making every night in bed an expedition of dreams, flowing through tunnels of puffy white clouds with dark water veins framed in towering green.
My trips down the San Juan River to its very end have been too few in my Nicaragua guiding career. There are only a select handful of travelers who are willing to assume the high logistical costs and fewer still who are also filled with the sense of adventure, as well as historical and ecological curiosity to make the more than 400 km round-trip journey in motorboat. Lodging along the river is far from luxurious, though a new lodge (opened 6 months ago) makes arrival to San Juan's drainage into the sea surreally comfortable. The Río Indio Lodge is not actually on Nicaragua's pristine Río Indio, but rather the interminably beautiful Bahia de San Juan and it is located in front of the century old rusting dredge from an aborted attempt at making the ever-elusive Nicaragua inter-oceanic canal. It was with the Río Indio Lodge guide Roseando that I enjoyed a memorable day of nature exploring in boat, while my clients chose to relax in the splendor of this fine hotel, reputed to be five million US dollars in the making.
While the end of the river is the most precious, the trip to arrive there is more than half of the fun. The domestic flight from Managua to San Carlos is the most painless way to start the 190 km journey from Lake Nicaragua to the Caribbean Sea. It is a flight I have taken nearly one hundred times, 50 minutes of soaring over massive Lake Nicaragua in a Cessna Caravan 208B, before the pilot bangs the tough little 14 seat single-prop down on a gravel and dirt landing strip located on a grassy hill behind the jungle capital of San Carlos. After a short jaunt in 4x4 taxi to the new dock at the start of the San Juan River, we stocked our cooler and loaded the luggage in our boat, a 23-foot fiberglass panga equipped with a 70 HP Yamaha and with a spare Johnson outboard on the floor, insurance against the ever-changing sands and stumps of the river ahead. Out boat crew included long time friend, marine mechanic and boatman Ricardo, as well as the king of San Juan River navigation, the 60 year-old Martín, whose navigational experience is only matched by his popularity on the river. As most travelers know, the details of an expedition well planned, are invisible. All are just details, fine print that no one notices unless they are not there. In any case Ricardo, Martín and I were merely theatre staff, and the boat, moving front-row seats for viewing the infinitely diverse spectacle of Nicaragua's rain forest flora and fauna.
Leaving San Carlos' ruddy complexion behind us, the San Juan opens up with wetlands and gallery forest lining its banks. A light rain can bring thousands of mangrove swallows twirling across the river picking off insects in an acrobatic chaos that exceeds the limits of our understanding of physical possibilities in its velocity and precision. Along the river edge green-backed herons yelp into the grass, while snowy and great white egrets angel white feathers illuminate their green backdrop. Great swimming birds like the anhinga and cormorant dive into the drink holding their breath for up to two minutes to capture their endless banquet of river fish. Above in the blue jungle sky, a wood stork plays with the air drafts; its elegant long beak and black and white wings make it a prince amongst those who share its airspace. It is hard not to relax when flowing through this river passage, let the work go to the outboard motor and the powerful body of the osprey, who slams its claws into the San Juan and lifts out of the water with a few strokes of its muscular wings, gripping a desperately wiggling fish.
After nearly two hours, the imposing site of the historic village of El Castillo fills the horizon. Stilted wooden homes line the southeastern banks of the San Juan, wrapped around the dome-like hill that supports the 17th century fortress built by Spain to stop the pirate pillage of Granada. From the ancient battle stations of the 328 year-old stone fortress, high above the El Diablo rapids, you can feel the immense power of this waterway, the true canal of the Americas and Central America's most important river. At El Castillo the great river has only taken on extra water from 5 of its principle 20 tributaries, yet the amount of water that rushes down its riverbed stagers the mind. According to a study by US archeologist Dr. Fredrick Lange finished in April of 2001; during the dry season more than 105,600 US gallons enter the Río San Juan from Lake Nicaragua per second. That is to say more than 380 million gallons per hour and this is at the height of the dry season! This is enough water passing everyday to supply the needs of the entire population of Central America for one year. The future of Nicaragua may be in this great natural resource, undoubtedly it has marked Nicaragua's past.
The history of the San Juan River is filled with brave navigators, pirates, kings, lord's, novelists and naturalists. An early navigator was Hernando de Soto, who after failing to reach the end of the San Juan in the late 1520's later became the first European to sail the great Mississippi River. After the Spaniards finally saw the river's drainage on Saint John's day (San Juan) in 1539, the river soon became the subject of canal dreams and foreign economic and strategic desires. Spanish King Felipe II had the foresight to order a feasibility study for an inter-oceanic canal in 1567. England and France both saw a second "Rock of Gibraltar" in the Río San Juan, while English and Dutch pirates knew the river was the best access to rob the wealthy Spanish merchant populace of Granada. With the exception of a temporarily successful weak-side land attack by the British Navy and a young Horatio Nelson in 1779 with 1,000 troops, the fort at El Castillo held the river in Nicaraguan sway. It was the little 3-foot deep moat around the ancient fortress that finally defeated its only foreign occupants, the forces of Lord Nelson. Unable to stop even the most un-athletic of invaders, the tiny moat provided an incubator for rain forest mosquitoes and it was insect born diseases that spelled the defeat of the English in El Castillo. The experience marked Lord Nelson's life. Long after leaving Nicaragua, Nelson himself would demand that the fort at El Castillo be painted into the background of a famous portrait of the English naval hero.
Novelist Mark Twain would pass through El Castillo in 1866, reflecting upon the storied history of the fortress, he erroneously suggesting that "Morgan and his merry men" had fought there, though Morgan's pre-fortress exploits in Granada are thought to have help inspire its rapid 3-year construction. Two years later English mining engineer and naturalist Thomas Belt arrived to El Castillo after a long journey in canoe from the Caribbean drainage of the San Juan River. He seemed nonplussed by the fortress, but noted that the town was an important center for the India-rubber trade. At the time of writing his book, "The Naturalist in Nicaragua", Belt noted that more than 750,000 pounds of rubber had been taken out of Nicaragua valued at over US$225,000. The tree used can still be found today in the forests of the Los Guatuzos Wildlife Refuge and is a wild fig (Castilloa elastica). The tree's bark was scored in a series of V cuts every three feet, and in one hour all of the milk was drained from the tree and combined with a liana-based liquid, which coagulated the mixture into rubber and then made into round flat cakes. A five-foot diameter tree could produce about 20 gallons of milk that would be converted to 50 pounds of rubber.
From the fortress battle stations looking down the snaking Río San Juan, the eye journeys to the tributary of Río Bartola and the start of the precious Indio-Maiz Biological Reserve, where we spend the first and final nights of the trip. In this small section of river between El Castillo and Bartola the Costa Rican border comes down to meet the southern banks of the great river and the final settlements on the Nicaragua side are found before the reserve begins. Refugio Bartola is a biological station, private reserve and simple and rustic hotel with private tiled baths and all wood rooms. Across the dark waters of the Bartola River is the first of four tiny guard shacks that protect the massive Indio-Maiz reserve. While commenting upon the sad lack of tourist infrastructure for the reserve, UCLA biologists called the reserve's more than half-million acres of pristine lowland rainforest "the jewel of neotropical rainforest parks in Central America" thanks to its rich fauna they cited as "impressive, even by neotropical standards." In two short visits to Refugio Bartola the UCLA scientists recorded 255 species of birds during a survey of only a few square kilometers of Indio-Maiz' southwest extremity. Walking on the trails behind the lodge I have seen numerous spider and howler monkeys, agouti, rare views of jaguarundi and the mysterious tayra, in addition to many colorful poison dart frogs and the menacing bullet ant. Exploring the Bartola River in dugout canoe is great for birding with numerous attractive species like the lovely keel-billed toucan and the bonus of an occasional three-toed sloth or river otter. Sitting in the thatched-roof rancho that looks out over the San Juan leads one to reflection. Thoughts about life in the industrialized world that lead to prayers that it will not find this sanctuary of timeless flora and fauna any time soon. The far off hum of the diesel generator that brings electric light to the rancho as dusk falls, is the only reminder of the passing of the last century.
The true beauty of the San Juan River, its richest jungle face, lies down river from Bartola. The journey from the little Bartola River to the Caribbean Sea in private motorboat takes between 4-6 hours, depending on the river's level and if one decides to make the numerous possible stops to view wildlife. Just past Bartola the first Costa Rican settlement reaches down to the south bank of the river. For the length of the river, the Costa Rican side is more settled than not. The Costa Rican bank is shared by cattle ranches mixed with humble substance farmers and a few vacation homes of the well off. Downstream from Bartola, the Nicaraguan side is pure forest, as the river skirts the Indio-Maiz Biological Reserve that runs to the Caribbean. On the Nicaragua side great walls of rain forest rise up from the reserve and stare across the river, hissing ironically in the jungle breeze at the sad deforestation that lies on the other side. As a guide for a much-maligned yet profoundly beautiful country like Nicaragua, it is impossible to resist the paradox. Over the hum of the outboard motor I play the straight man, pointing earnestly to the deforested and eroding Costa Rican bank of the river, "On this side you have Costa Rica, country of nature parks, the land of peace, democracy and wildlife conservation", spinning to the Nicaragua bank, I sweep my hand across the magnificent Indio-Maiz, draped in virgin rain forest, "Here you have Nicaragua, land of war, corruption, disaster, and poverty." Not all the Costa Rican side as fallen to the chainsaw however, and the sections where both banks fill the river with green reflections of towering flora are a meditation on the timeless beauty of the river. Centuries have passed, carrying dreams of a canal and political domination of the isthmus down river. What was left behind by failed ambition is a blessing for lovers of the earth's raw beauty.
Modern day realities, like drug and immigrant running, along the endless human highway that leads from South America into the United States, means that the river must have some kind of regulation. At three points downriver from Bartola there are little guard shacks, which double as immigration and boat documentation check points, as well as housing the handful of very dedicated park rangers who help protect the Indio-Maiz Reserve. After showing our papers and listening to the army guys all laughing and joking with our navigator Martin, we are on our way. Martin is known to all on the river as "El Pajaro" (the bird), in English this nickname would more accurately be "The Birdman". Every night Martin sleeps inside the boat in a hammock, suspended in his portable nest, refusing any offers of an onshore hotel room and bed. In fact, in his house he keeps a hammock strung up next to his bed, and when that dry flat space becomes to much to bear, he slips into his hammock and sleeps like a baby. This compensates for the rare nights he is not on the water. Nowhere does Martin look more at home than navigating on the river, the motor humming behind the fiberglass boat and Martin smiling calmly into the wind, as he zigzags around obstacles that are invisible on the surface of the river. The endless switchbacks and occasional throttle adjustments are in response to a river floor relief map that is ingrained in Martin's brilliant memory. In combination with Ricardo, the boat owner, a very good navigator in his own right and a marine mechanic (someone perfectly capable of fixing any wilderness motor problem), we are invincible, free to enjoy.
The trip down river passes the major waterways the drain Costa Rica's northern lowlands into the Río San Juan: the Río San Carlos and the Río Sarapiquí. It also veers past the massive drainage of the Río Colorado, a downriver branch of the great San Juan that (since a sediment buildup in the San Juan in the late 1800's) actually carries more of the San Juan's water to the Caribbean than the San Juan itself. Brown sandbanks on the shores of the Río San Juan reveal black crocodiles warming their skin under the tropical skies. They are normally nonplussed by a passing boat, but we shut down the motor and float up to one, his toothy grin and steely eyes trained on our boat. The crocodile, some 9 feet in length and with a frightfully thick and powerful tail, waits until we are upon him and then thrashes without warning into the river, demonstrating startling quickness. Martin and Ricardo both laugh heartily, they have seen thousands of big crocs in their years on the river, yet the mixture of the animal's fierce jaws and pre-historic body are seductive to the eye, it never gets old. Watching a big crocodile from the safety of a boat one feels a small tinge of vulnerability that swimming would turn quickly into well-founded terror.
Past the entrance to the Río Colorado the San Juan grows more intimate and bird watching improves dramatically. The trees along the banks are littered with kingfishers, the lovely ringed kingfisher, who squawks in disapproval at our disruption of his fishing grounds, escapes with its trademark stroke, stoke, glide wing-beats. In miniature is one of the world's tiniest fishermen, the American pygmy kingfisher, who one could imagine as a distant, ruffian cousin of the delicate hummingbird, forever attached to charging beak first into the river, as the hummingbird is to floating amongst the flowers. More toucans are often seen here, like the stately chestnut-mandibled toucan and the burnt orange and black collared aracari. On this trip we were treated with the presence of the most beautiful of the airborne dead-meat-eaters-club, the king vulture, he circled above the river at low altitude with some black vultures, rival undertakers who will always give way to the king vulture (hence his name) when stationary meat is found. Parrots are common in many different shapes and sizes along the river and deep inside the Indio-Maiz. With fortune, a pair of increasingly rare scarlet macaws burst into flight across the river in front of our boat, their deep resonant and hoarse squawks echoing off the river's canopy trees, while their strong and serene, blue, yellow and red wings led a stream of fire-red tail feathers to the opposite bank.
The lowest part of the Río San Juan becomes swampy with giant palms and wetlands dominating the shoreline. Here the river snakes wildly in improbable formations of twisted serpents, as if God would be tempted to place his dinner fork here and twirl Mother Nature like fresh pasta. Both sides of the San Juan are once again inside Nicaragua, as the waters of Lake Nicaragua search for their salty comeuppance where the mouth of the great river washes its muddy currents into the sea. Through the tropical lowland forest, the roar of the Caribbean can be heard and one arrives to a long, thick sand bar that rises above the river, "La Barra" (the bar) as it is known simply in Nicaragua, is the end of the confluence. Here it is impossible not to feel elation as one stands on the sandbar peering out at the Caribbean Sea and its wild, windswept coast; feeling all the while the heat of the calm, dark river and bright green forest behind you. The end of the river brings the entrance to the great coastal estuaries known as the Bahia de San Juan. These brilliant bodies of water is where flowers float above mirror dark waters and the historic town of Greytown hides inside history's pages, now only a series of graveyards and forgotten sidewalks, covered in rain forest, ferns and moss. It is in this wilderness setting that the ambitious Río Indio Lodge was built and is now receiving its finishing touches. How joyously guilty one feels to find such a luxury here at the end of the earth, surrounded by such priceless nature. Although meant for wealthy sport fishermen to reap the rewards of these virgin waters, the hotel is also an excellent base to explore the unique nature of Nicaragua's mini-Amazon, with trips up the Río Indio or untouched lagoons and lakes to the east.
I felt lucky to have Roseando with me, for one I had not met many Rama Indians, there are very few left and I spend too much time on the Pacific side of the country. More importantly he is a good guide, not exactly a naturalist, but for sure one with a love for nature and a good eye, who with some effort, could shortly become the best locally based nature guide in the country. In the forest near the lodge we stood in silence watching two pairs of beautiful, psychedelic green honeycreepers, grinning to ourselves at their beauty, as they danced from branch to branch, gossiping in the dark forest. Later, while navigating at full tick on the Río San Juan, Roseando somehow spotted a zone-tailed hawk at 300 meters, when the (mostly black) bird of prey was well inside the shade of a riverbank tree. He spun the boat around to get a closer look and we viewed it through binoculars. We also spotted three other species of bird of prey that day, along with the usual impressive assortment of egrets, herons, ducks, limpkins and jacanas.
I cupped my hands around my mouth and growled up towards the male howler monkey. He glared back at me from his canopy harem of female howlers and recent offspring. Roseando again laughed his hearty laugh, bemused at my howler monkey chant. I had used it earlier to try and wake up a snoring three-toed sloth to no avail, but this time the male howler returned my call with vengeance. Nicaragua has three species of monkeys and the most prevalent is the howler, whose call greets every sunrise in the Nicaraguan rain forest, as well as a good deal of complaining before a heavy rain or relevant social and territorial concerns in the forest canopy. Though the skinny and spectacular spider monkey is the most fun to watch for its high branch athleticism and the curious white face monkey is by far the cutest of the bunch, it is the howler monkey that cries out centuries of evolution from the tree tops. His call sends shivers through the forest. It is a low growl of warning, a primal cry of desperation and joy, hope and danger. The howler's call is a scream of the ages and it trips a nerve. The howler cries out for our race to be careful, not to cut and burn the last of his perches, for if his scream becomes a silent one, we have lost both future and past.
Copyright © Richard Leonardi