The ten hour Ferry ride from Ometepe to San Carlos was **** and quite painful to my muscles, bones and patience.. if i were to do it again i'd buy a cheap hammock to string up to the many polls and bars available on the deck of the primero class and sleep right through.. After most of the night fidgeting in discontent I gave up on the bench for ...

After a restless nights sleep, we arrived in San Carlos, a dirty frontier town on the southeastern shore of Lago de Nicaragua. From here we took a small boat down the rio San Juan , which runs all the way to the Caribbean Sea. About a third of the way down is the small town of El Castillo, named after the fortress built by the Spanish in 1675 at...

Day 2 of our cashless existence! There are 3 main things one can do in El Castillo apart from the fortress visit: - go fishing to the Caribbean (turpin all over) - go caiman spotting at night - horse riding around the hills As we had plenty of caiman in the restaurant and we are not anglers, we decided on our favourite pass time...and for $15 do...

The good thing about not choosing your own hotel (due to the credit card requirement - see story yesterday), is that you will probably go to a better place than you had selected originally...and that was the case. The Hotel Victoria was only $30 US per night for a double, ensuite bathroom, cable tv, mosquito net (vital!) and breakfast included. ...

Afin de finir en beauté, j'ai voulu train** mes vieux os dans une partie assez reculée du Nicaragua, sur le fleuve San Juan. Rien que pour y all**, tu as une première étape de 9 heures de f**ry de nuit. Tu prends une 2éme classe histoire de vouloir la jou** locale mais bon, c'est plein, ça sent le fauve et tu te dis que les prochaines 9 heures v...

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 ahi tres horitas mas en otra lancha para el Castillo a traves del rio San Juan, al principio no habia tickets para el barco pero ya se sabe que antes se hunde el barco que la compañia deje de ingresar dine...

We arrived in San Carlos at 6am after our nightmare boat journey from Omitepe. We had hoped to get the 8am boat up the Rio San Juan to El Castillo but it was full so a group of us had to wait for the one at 10.30. Not a lot to do in San Carlos but we got some bread and bananas and coffees and had breakfast on the dock. The trip up the river was ...

After spending most of the day hanging about at the resort, we set off late afternoon for Altagracia. A packed bus and then a fortuitous pickup got us to the pretty shabby looking port. Our overnight ferry to San Carlos awaited, but was an hour late arriving and another hour before we left. Like all the travellers, we got first class tickets (no...

The owner of the Hotel Ric******* served us a nice breakfast of fresh fruit, juice, coffee and toast on the back veranda. After eating, we set out up the hill to go to El Fortaleza. It's a fortress built by the Spanish in 1675 to keep marauding pirates from reaching Lake Cocibolca and Granada. Previous to it's erection, pirates had twice been ab...

We'd planned on heading on toward Ometepe Island today and found out the night before that there was a 'fast boat' we could take to San Carlos. The 'regular' boat left the dock area at 5AM and the fast boat left at 5:15AM but we had to reserve space the night before (which we did). The fast boat had only one stop at Boca de Sabalos and we quickl...