La Ruta del Agua: tourism initiative to promote Nicaragua’s southern waterways

The boat is king on Nicaragua's Rio San Juan--even this one, with a 1-cylinder Lister engine

Navigating the Rio San Juan in Southern Nicaragua today, you won’t see much traffic. There are the local fisherman, a few sportfishermen, and the small boats that ferry local residents from very isolated towns to marginally less isolated ones.

But in centuries past, the river was a busy thoroughfare. Spanish conquistadors sailed upriver to Lake Nicaragua and settled the rich colonial city of Granada. Pirates made the same trip to plunder the wealth of what became the richest colonial territory in Central America. And in the mid-1800s, up to 10,000 people a year took the Nicaragua shortcut from the East Coast of the U.S. to the California Gold Rush, avoiding the long sail around the tip of South America. (Travelers also used Panama as a cut-off point, though the canal wasn’t yet built.)

Frank Ochomogo, local project director of the Ruta del Agua tourist initiative

Frank Ochomogo, local Project Director of a $14,720 million tourism initiative they’re calling “La Ruta del Agua,” would like to see the river regain some its former traffic, but this time from travelers who come for the nature, culture, sportfishing, and adventure rather than for the plunder or the quickest route to somewhere else.

I had breakfast with Frank in early December at Philippe Tisseaux’s Esquina del Lago lodge, and he explained that the initiative intends to develop tourism and infrastructure in the area of Southern Nicaragua defined by three bodies of water: The Caribbean Sea, the Rio San Juan, and Lake Nicaragua. The money for the project comes from a loan for the Interamerican Bank.

Although the project is on the books as a tourism development initiative, one of its major components—the improvement of infrastructure—will benefit local residents at least as much as tourists. Right now, the road from Managua to San Carlos—at 15,000 people, one of the bigger towns in the area—is only 300 km, but take up to 15 hours on the bus because the poor state of the road.

“We’re putting our house in order,” says Frank. “So that we can invite people in.”

Diving off the new San Carlos dock

The bulk of the money ($12 of the almost $15 million) is slated for infrastructure improvement. Besides road repairs, there are 11 new docks planned in communities throughout the Ruta del Agua area, and 8 new immigration posts to be built, each at the juncture of the San Juan and another river that feeds into it.

The entire waterfront area of San Carlos has already received a major face lift, with a new dock, a riverside promenade, a new immigration post under construction, and even a brand-new ATM machine that, marvels Tisseaux, “actually works and actually has money in it! That’s huge, you have no idea.”  There is also a bridge planned from Costa Rica to Nicaragua—from Santa Fe, they told me, though I couldn’t find that town on any map and couldn’t picture where a bridge connecting the two countries would go.

Smaller pieces of the funding pie will go to promotion and low-interest loans to local tourism-related businesses so that they can expand their capacity.

A tributary of the Rio San Juan near the Costa Rica / Nicaragua border

The Ruta del Agua area is rife with nature reserves–Guatuso, Vida Silvestre San Juan, and Indo Maiz—and cultural and historical treasures like the Solentiname Archipeligo, known for its painters and artisans, and El Castillo, a Spanish fort built in 1675 to guard against pirates.

Tisseaux, French-born and now a Nicaraguan resident, helps sportfishermen chase town the river’s mammoth tarpon. He also does a lot of reading about the history of his adopted country. “About 100,000 people came up the Rio San Juan on their way from the eastern United States to the Gold Rush in California,” he says.  “That means that a good portion of people descended from the 49ers had a relative that passed through the area.”

One of the travelers who made the trip was Mark Twain, who described the area as consisting of “dark grottos, fairy festoons, tunnels, temples, columns, pillars, towers, pilasters, terraces, pyramids, mounds, domes, walls, in endless confusion of vine work.”

All photos by David W. Smith.

A gay Border’s Café in the Nicaraguan jungle?

El Castillo, an old Spanish fort above the Rio San Juan, Nicaragua

We took a boat up the Rio San Juan to El Castillo, which is both an old Spanish fort and an appealing small town with many of its houses built out over the river. The first thing we saw when we disembarked was a sign that said “Borders Coffee” with an arrow pointing up a wooden staircase to an open-air space with tables and chairs and rows of potted plants.

The café belongs to Jamil, featured in the last Lonely Planet Nicaragua under the heading, “El Castillo’s Shame.” Jamil is openly gay, and he has been harassed by the townspeople, the police, and the army, but has stood his ground and now has a thriving business with an enviable location and the only espresso machine in town.

Born in El Castillo, Jamil went away to school in San Jose, Costa Rica, but came home because this is where his family is. “Nicaraguans says,” Jamil told me, “that all Ticos are faggots (‘maricones’). But it’s just that they’re more open about it.”

Borders Coffee in El Castillo, Nicaragua

Jamil is very well-spoken, self-possessed, and I can only imagine the reserves of strength he has had to draw on being the only out gay man in a small remote riverside town in a part of the world not known for its enlightened views towards gays.

Jamil, at his Border's Cafe in El Castillo, Nicaragua

Another long-term resident of the area put a slightly different spin on Jamil’s saga. “It sounds like his biggest crime was that he was a good businessman,” this person speculated. “He was probably affecting other people’s businesses, so they used the excuse of his sexuality to harass him.”

Whatever the explanation, I enjoyed talking to Jamil and hope that he and his cafe continue to thrive.

All photos by David W. Smith.