ERUPTING with treasures
Birdlife, beaches, volcanoes... Nicaragua offers a wealth of riches for intrepid travellers
kitchen to photograph it on their phones, as the nation held its breath.
They were still dismantling the highwire towers when I visited Nindiri a few days later. Local tourists, eager to see where Wallenda had crossed, jostled each other good-naturedly to look over the edge, marvelling at the fiery ferocity of the mighty volcano.
Nicaragua’s youngest volcano, Cerro Negro, rises like a 728m heap of soot north of Nicaragua Lake. Daredevils cycle and motorbike down it. But its soft gravel is also ideal for wooden sledgeboarding, which I tried for a once-in-a-lifetime thrill.
Nearby are the San Jacinto mudpots, openings in the Earth’s crust that bubble with boiling clay and sulphurous gases. The eerie, ancient landscape was almost deserted, except for a small girl scooping up the therapeutic clay, which she sold in plastic bags.
Ometepe is a big twinconed volcanic island in Nicaragua Lake and home to Charco Verde Ecological Reserve, full of birds and a butterfly sanctuary that plays classical music ‘to inspirate’ the Blue Prince butterflies shimmering among the orchids and hibiscus. Afterwards I walked round the almost-deserted lagoon.
Nicaraguan beaches rival any in the world, and those on the south Pacific, like Popoyo, Sardinas, Maderas and Colorado, are popular with American surfers. I arrived in San Juan del Sur, a crescent-shaped bay, overlooked by a huge statue of Christ, where I ate brunch in a cafe playing Neil Young, before travelling on to Morgan’s Rock.
A ranger and his driver took me looking for sloths in an open jeep. We did not see any but spotted many monkeys and squirrels.
A tiny propeller plane will take you to the Corn Islands, off the opposite Caribbean coast. I’d heard Little Corn was wonderful, so from Big Corn I hopped over on the ferry, a narrow, open panga with a motor.
Fellow passengers shrieked with glee as we thudded over the waves. Despite the jolly atmosphere, it was as close as I got to feeling scared on my trip.
There are no cars or motorbikes on Little Corn, so I followed a boy with my luggage in a wheelbarrow to Beach And Bungalow, a Robinson Crusoe castaway fantasy.
No one here did much more than lie in a hammock and gaze at the sea. It harked back to days of a purer, simpler Caribbean but with delicious food and generous, inventive cocktails served from the Turned Turtle beach restaurant.
Perhaps most charming of all about Nicaragua is its poetic soul. Its national hero is Ruben Dario, the poet who died of alcoholism in 1916 aged 49. Statues of him abound and every citizen can quote the line from El Retorno, loosely translated as, ‘Though our homeland is small, we dream it big.’
These words are chalked up on cafe blackboards, painted on walls and emblazoned above the portal of the cathedral in Managua.
I visited Dario’s house in his hometown of Leon, considered to be Nicaragua’s intellectual capital. Leon also boasts a splendid, baroque wedding-cake cathedral, a fascinating Museum of the Revolution and the Oritz-Gurdian collection of Latin American art, housed in two fine old mansions, which were the presidential residence before the capital moved to Managua.
The joy of Nicaragua is that it feels undiscovered yet offers a good infrastructure and plenty of excellent resorts and hotels. I travelled with Careli Tours, which supplied me with knowledgeable, friendly guides throughout. Already, McDonald’s and international hotel chains are in the capital, so visit before this exquisite country is trampled upon.
TRAVEL FACTS
Careli Tours offers a ten-day trip at €3.513pp with twin or double rooms. Also includes private transport, domestic flights, guide, breakfast, all meals at Jicaro Lodge, accommodation in the hotels mentioned and local taxes (carelitours.com). American Airlines flies to Managua via Miami for €1,789 return (american airlines.ie.) More information at vianica.com