San Juan Del Sur
Sunday 19th January 2014 and it’s Nicaragua, our final stop before San Francisco next Saturday where a large percentage get off and rumour has it a load of Australians get on including 47 children. Actually 705 people are going the full way around which is well over a third of the passengers.
Anyway back to Nicaragua. It’s sandwiched between Costa Rica to the south and Honduras and El Salvador to the North with a cost on both Oceans. It has the 2nd largest lake in Latin America (see above) called Lake Nicaragua, more of which later, with many active and inactive Volcanoes. The one in the picture is inactive but the one beside (not in the picture) it is very much active.
I went for a climb round the the crater of an inactive volcano (I’m not stupid) near the City of Granada, founded by the Spanish conquistador Cordoba in 1524, called Mombacho.
Taking the easy way up by 4×4 lorry on a block paved road we ascended the 3000m to the top. Now where all this block paving came from or who did or why it is a complete mystery to me, but it made for a superb, if very steep, road. Half way up is a coffee plantation so we all have to stop for a coffee and a lesson.
At the top the temperature was a pleasant 19’ where Nicaragua has an average year round temperature of 28’/ 82’F. The picture shows that the crater has now become a “cloud forest” where all the moisture is from the clouds as opposed to a “rain” forest. So during our hike around the crater we learned about all the different ways the plants conserve water….most of which I have already forgotten!
When we descended down into Granada for lunch we were surrounded by people selling the locally made pots. I now have a large pot sold to me by the lady behind our guide!
Everyone I have spoken to on board enjoyed Nicaragua, although very poor, the people were very friendly and no-one felt at all threatened or pestered and maybe because of this I think I saw a lot more people come back on board with items purchased. A lesson for all salesmen.
Finally, I did say I would write more about the lake. Japan has put a lot of money into Nicaragua with aid after the Hurricane, schools, roads and cancellation of all the debt. In return it wanted to build a new canal from one ocean to the other through the Lake. However the lake now for part of the National Park and has a freshwater shark living in it. So because of the environmental problems, Japan suggested a “dry canal” where a new dock would be built on each side joined by a railway and said that they could unload onto trains, tranship and reload faster and cheaper than using the Panama.
However, the Nicaraguan government has suddenly signed a contract for the Chinese to build a new wet canal through the Lake with a clause that any environmental problems caused is not the problem of the Chinese…..now, how did that happen?
