Hotel Victoria El Castillo

... the videos but it was the same guy in every one. Mom thought he looked like a Nicaraguan Don Ho. He wore tight acid washed jeans in every video and favored heavy necklaces hanging outside buttoned-up shirts. He sported the biggest, baddest 80’s mulletino I’ve ever seen. Everything about the guy was just plain wrong. Plus, every video featured Don Nica-HO surrounded by 4-5 latinas wearing teeny tini bikinis, dancing and shaking their butts. Which wouldn’t be too bad ...

... The last hut across the street. On our walk over there we ran into a huge spider web, and of course screamed. Apparently the lady that was handing on the keys said oh, they probably ran into a monkey (yes, they had those too). But nope – it was a spider web. We opened our door and turned on the lights and the walls were basically moving. There were lizards galore, things flying around - - yeaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh. I freaked out and almost started crying. I honestly didn ...

Oh my god, we've just had the journey from hell. Against better judgement, especially as Paul hates boats, we took a 10hour overnight boat from the island to San Carlos at the bottom of Lake Nicaragua. The lake is so big it takes 10 hours to cross it. Even persuading Paul to part with more money to go in first class didn't help. It looked like a paddle steamer and it wasn't built for comfort. Downstairs in the servants quarters were wooden slatted ...

... on the way and ended up jumping in a minvan with them. As we had no idea as to where we wanted to go, this was the easiest option. Somone else did the negotiating and the decision making for us, it was bliss. On the other side of the island is a small group of buildings called Santa Domingo. We all ended up staying in the same budget hotel and had a cracking few days with some good food, beer and company at last. The only thing is, is that unless you want to hike up a volcano for ...

... the bed, but it wasn´t. The surly man asked us if we´d like lunch and then drove off on his motorbike to get a chicken. His wife, they ran the place in a mood together, must have wanted the chicken to last as all we got for lunch was a wing, some rice and some beans. Skimping on food does not make us happy people. But at lunch we realised we weren´t alone and hung out with a Canadian couple for the rest of the rainy day. The surly ...

... in the bus, it´s not important. These buses are incredible, they´re like trucks, they get up anything. Anyway. We arrived in El Cua at about 4 pm hoping to get a connecting bus to a small lodge we´d heard about, about 18km away. But no luck. The last bus had gone. We eventually eked out this information from the local police as it was impossible to get it from anywhere else. El policia also, as an aside, added that ...

El Castillo is a site of historical significance in Nicaragua's colonial history, so much so that it appears on one of their banknotes. It was a Spanish fort that held its own during an attack by British raiders. The place itself is no more than a few houses on the banks of the San Juan River, with a little fort. I guess not a lot of tourists get down here, at least we didn't see any. The trip to the fort was, for me, more impressive than the fort itself. A small river boat took us ...

English at the bottom Viaje por la noche de 11 horas en un barco tan lleno como los chicken buses de Guatemala, para llegar a San Carlos y de ahí tres horitas mas en otra lancha para el Castillo a través del río San Juan, al principio no había tickets para el barco pero ya se sabe que antes se hunde el barco que la compañía deje de ingresar dinero, en el viaje el grupo de viajeros crece y somos un total de 10 con 7 nacionalidades distintas, nuestra intención seria cruzar a Costa ...