Nicaraguan river trip – failure and success

So some of you might remember my really well figured out plan to take a river boat to the Caribbean coast. Well plans change. On the way I got to know briefly the island of Ometepe. While leaving from the island I met two Finns and an Austrian. After that plans changed. We ended up to the islands of Solentiname where we stayed for 3 days. It’s hard to come any closer to early-August-Finnish-summer-night in Central America. Beautiful islands in the middle of the lake. Fresh water to swim in, Finns around you and few beers. The biggest difference to Finland was that we don’t have bull sharks in our lakes.

If Ometepe with two volcanos was nice Solentiname was great. I bumped into a big group of old Finnish people who were traveling together. I panicked and tried telling all of them “hola!” (”Hi!” in spanish) but I think they knew where I was from. After dozen of spanish greetings one man said “Terve!” (”hello!”) so confidently that I knew my cover had been compromised. I ran back to our lodge as fast as I could hoping the old folks wouldn’t follow.

After doing pretty much nothing for some days in Solentiname, which was great, we returned to civilization and started heading down river. At this point our Finnish girl left to Costa Rica so it was just me (Que Chevara), Sandianista and Dr. Gonzo.

After a loooong boat ride we ended up to a river village. No names this time. There are some places I want to save just for me and this is one of them. If you really want to find out where I was it wont take a lot of detective work.

We saw monkeys, river, locals, river, jaguar prints, river, boats, a few travelers and river shrimps.

We also kind of got stuck to that place and never made it down the river. Plenty of reasons for that but the most important was that we didn’t feel like going down. It was time to change the country. On my second last day in Nicaragua I wanted to fullfil my long dream of eating ´gallo pinto´ for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The plate consists of fried rise and beans. It’s usually served with tiny salad, cheese, maybe a tortilla, eggs and hot sauce. After those three strikes I was out.

This adventure would have a lot more to write about but already knowing how people react to certain things, subjects, opinions and generalisations I find it a lot easier for everyone to just let the photos do the talking. Thank you so much M&M&P for the company during this lake/river trip, it was awesome! :P

It’s a bit long photo gallery but if you’re not in a hurry sit down and see what river and lake life in Nicaragua looks like.

You know who was free? The fish that got away. He only had a hook in his mouth as a reminder.