Fer de Lance

This Time Last year

It's a rest day at the Laguna del Lagarto. I watch birds before breakfast and do my laundry after.

I spend the rest of the morning reading on the deck and go for a short butterfly walk in the afternoon. Looked at the caimans in the ponds.

Usual stuff in the evening. Dinner and a couple of drinks.

This Time in 2007

After breakfast we get ready for a paddle up the Rio Bartola. For fun we decide that we will all paddle together in the traditional canoe. I'll take the bow and Carlos will take the stern and Lee and Florence will sit in the middle.

First of all we paddled over to the Ranger Station to see if the Ocelot was there. we;'d heard that they had raised an orphan and it still came out of the forest to visit from time to time. It wasn't there.

At first the river is slow and wide. It's clear too and you can see plenty of fish underneath the boat. Carlos, as usual pointed out the bird-life. The highlight was a Violaceous Trogon. We also saw plenty of Howler Monkeys in the tree-tops. It is very quiet on this river and we saw only one other boat all day. Someone fishing.

The sun beat down, and strangely we saw a Brown Pelican - wouldn't normally expect to see these on a forest river. We saw plenty of Blue Morphos glittering in the air in the dappled light along the forest's edge. At one point we saw a violet butterfly which was also iridescent but it disappeared before we could get too close.

After about an hour we came to our first obstruction as the river turned into a rock field. We pulled up onto a beach and then went exploring on foot to see if we could get any further on the river. The river widened again so Carlos and I pushed and pulled the canoe through the small rapid and everyone hopped back in to continue upstream. We did this three or four times as we continued until finally the river was becoming too narrow to continue.

As Carlos was pushing and I was pulling the canoe, with Lee and Florence still on-board, through our last rapid, I heard Lee say "is that a snake over there?". No more than 2m away was a huge snake lying on the bank. It was about 2.5m long and about as thick as your forearm in the middle. It was also unmistakably a Fer-de-Lance. One of the worlds most deadliest snakes. Apparently you have about 4 hours to live after it's bitten you!

My first reaction was to get a photograph - though I didn't get too close! It was laid out in the sun and didn't move at all whilst we were there. It looked calm, relaxed, confident and unperturbed and possibly full as well. Carlos said they would coil before striking.

Even so Lee said she would feel a lot happier if I got back in the canoe. Surprisingly Lee was quite calm - all holiday she'd been telling us how she loathed and feared snakes.

After turning the canoe around we paddled back past the snake and started our canoe downstream. Somehow we managed to ride through all the rapids that we had walked through on the way up which was quite tricky in a 4-man canoe. We only bumped through once and only ran aground once too. It was here that we saw a troop of Spider Monkeys.

We saw the Brown Pelican again and some more of the violet butterflies as well as a bright green Malachite Butterfly.

When we got to the mouth of the river we again dropped into the Ranger Station and this time the Ocelot Cub was there.

We then got our luggage together and got a ride back to El Castillo on the Park Rangers boat, which towed our canoes back too. We got back to the Victoria Hotel in time for a late lunch.

Steve falls into a creek

This Time Last Year

As usual it was a long drive to get out of Escondido and find our put-in on the Rio Tres Amigos. We never seem to be able to find the same spot and this time we had to slide the canoes down a very steep bank.

This is a very sweet river that runs languid and green. It was very quiet on this day and we had a very pleasant five hour paddle with a stop for lunch on a beach somewhere.

We had to pull through a couple of rapids which were blocked by strainers and Tina and John dumped twice. In the second one Carolyn and I did a mid-stream T-rescue which was unusual as we normally just pull over to a beach to empty the stricken canoe.

At the take-out we had a very long muddy walk back to the bus. When everyone was ready I walked with everyone into the nearby village whilst the bus was loaded.

Then it was another long bumpy ride to Laguna del Lagarto just outside the village of Boca Tapada. We didn't arrive until 7pm and so basically had dinner and went to bed.

This Time in 2007

Today we are to move to the Bartola Lodge at the junction of the Rio San Juan and the Rio Bartola and the entrance to the Indo-Maiz Biological Reserve.

We have a late lunch as our boatman is not arranged until 10am. In fact Lee and I decide to paddle down which is easy as it's downstream. We mostly hug the river left and look at the small-holdings along the way. Each seems to have a pig underneath a house on stilts, a clutch of chickens and the odd cow. We also pass a couple of sweetcorn and plantain plantations before arrived at the Rio Bartola. We pay a visit to the Ranger Station and Army base first just to say hello before crossing back over the Bartola to the lodge.

The staff here were amazingly indifferent. We hadn't been able to contact them before and they seemed uninterested in the fact that we wanted to stay over tonight. I tried to explain that Carlos was arriving later with Florence and that we'd all be staying.

To pass the time we lazed on the hammocks and idly watched the river go by as the colourful birds fluttered about.

Eventually Carlos arrived with Florence and a French couple in tow. Our hosts managed to rustle up some drinks but said it would be two hours until lunch was ready. Carlos discovered that they were going to charge us a hefty price to stay so we decided that one night would be enough and that we'd return to El Castillo and the Victoria on Friday.

Soon we were joined by a young couple from the USA who it transpired were paddling the whole length of the Rio San Juan all the way down to the Caribbean Ocean and a small town called San Juan del Norte. We discovered very quickly that they were seriously un-prepared and were carrying very little food. They thought they could go shopping down river! They also had very little money and almost no idea of what to expect. They couldn't afford the lunch here so we treated them. It was, after all, six dollars! Buying lunch for rich kids sucks, but buying lunch for dorks does show some kindness. The French couple disappeared back upstream before lunch.

The lunch itself was very good though the red-bean soup gave me extra power all afternoon!

After lunch we lazed again on the hammocks and the young couple finally go on their way about 3.30pm.

At 4.30pm Carlos rounded us up for a walk in the forest. The idea is that it is cooler now and the birds are a bit more lively as dusk approaches at about 6.30pm. We took our head-torches.

We didn't need wellies as the forest floor was quite dry and we enjoyed a stroll through the forest until it began to get dark. We managed to see a Rufous Motmot (a bird), a Brilliant Frog and a tiny Leaf Litter Frog.

Unfortunately we popped out the forest too early so we decided to go back in and take another trail loop. Soon we came to a point where the trail crossed a small creek on a dilapidated bridge. Carlos went first and balanced along the right-hand log. I went next and tried to balance across using both logs. Unfortunately the left log broke and I toppled into the creek. Luckily I kept my camera out of the water, though I of course was soaked from by boots to my left shoulder. Fortunately the creek contained no hidden dangers like branches to impale me or snakes to bite me! Of course everyone thought it was hilarious.

Lee and Florence managed to cross as we threw down a bunch of twigs. I pulled myself out of the quagmire and squelched on my way.

The trail was a bit more arduous than the first trail and had quite a few steep and slippery ascents and descents. As it darkened under the canopy the noise level grew and we hurried on our way. We had crossed a number of small streams but eventually we came down to a larger stream - about 6 foot wide. We couldn't see where the trail continued on the other side and even though Carlos leapt across he couldn't find the way.

So we decided to re-trace our steps as we knew at least that this would lead us back to camp. The light was fading fast now and the crepuscular noise level was rising to a crescendo. Eventually we had to put our head-lamps on so that we could at least have a chance of seeing any snakes on the trail.

I took the lead and Carlos took the tail as we toiled back the way we had come. Up and down the slippery trail. Under logs and over logs. Everything looks the same and it seemed longer now that it did on the way out. Eventually we got back to the bridge of my downfall so at least we knew we didn't have that far to go. By this time my batteries were going and it was completely dark. And then finally we stumbled out of the forest and amazingly it was still only 6.30pm. Time seemed to get all compressed in there.

We found out later that a Ranger had gone into the forest to try and find us and that when we turned back we where in fact only 300m from the exit!

Anyway we went and sat down and had a beer to celebrate our safe return before cleaning up and changing for dinner.

Dinner was very pleasant and everyone enjoyed the re-telling and embellishing of my fall. Before going to bed I tried to take some photographs of the night sky. Unbelievable amount of stars in these Nicaraguan nights.

Rio Bartola

This Time Last Year

Today we leave El Castillo for the Bartola Lodge which is at the confluence of the Rio San Juan and the Rio Bartola. It takes us about an hour to paddle down as the Rio San Juan runs quite fast here.

On the opposite side of the Rio Bartola from the Lodge is the offices of the Indo-Maiz Reserve. After we disembarked most of the group were happy to rest in the hammocks and read or bird-watch. Pat I paddled up the Rio Bartola enojoying the silence. We pushed and pulled our way up over seven small rapids before finally deciding that the river was too narrow to go any further. We rode the rapids on the way back and arrived just in time for lunch.

After a brief siesta I took M for a paddle back up the river. It was even quieter this time although we still saw a few monkeys about.

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