Arrive in Urique

Ireland

I'm off to Dublin today to meet up with my brothers for the Ireland vs England rugby match on Saturday. After that I shall be travelling to the west coast of ireland, beginning in Killarney. I wont be back until the 12th march.

This Time Last Year

Woke up at 6am after good night's sleep and walked down to the outlook that we were shown yesterday. I took a good few pictures as the sun rose and lit the gorge. Walter came later and we walked back together for a breakfast at about 7am.



The first hour was a very steep descent with plenty of scree. I was ahead when we reached the bottom of this section (though we would spend all day descending) and bathed my feet in a rock pool whilst waiting for the others. Amazingly I saw a salamander in the pool floating in that typical skydiver way.



Our descent continued on the shady side of the gorge on a fine track. Superb views.

Eventually the horses pasted us and we could see that the riders were having a tricky time on the steep descent. I think some of them walked on some sections. The descent continued and we passed some marijuana fields. It's grown a lot in small allotments high in the mountains, but it's not wise to hang about or take photographs.

Our descent continued and we took a break at a metal bridge across a small stream.

Pretty soon we arrived at the small village of Naranjo. We have lunch at a friends of our guide and enjoy the shade.

After that the descent continues only this time we are in the full glare of the sun. I use my umbrella as a sun-shade much to everyone's amusement.

Finally we get down to the road and are met my a truck of our ranch. They will drive us into Urique so we don't have to walk the hot dusty road ourselves.



Details
Start at 8.48 and walked for 6hrs 53mins
Low 849m at 15.41
High 1941m at 9.12
Descent 1299m
Ascent 216m

We stay at a small hotel in town and convene at a local restaurant for dinner later. I manage to upset a farmer from the USA who grows corn locally and then offers it as prize money to the locals for long-distance running. If the local tribes had not been thrown off their land and made to live in the mountains they would still be growing their own corn now. He didn't like my arguments. I didn't ask if he was growing GM varieties!

The dinner was very good and the company around the table fun. Later a bunch of bikers came in and joined us. They were boisterous and friendly.

This Time in 2007

Today we are to paddle the Tres Amigos. But first we must repair the damaged canoe.

We finally get away at about 9am after some hassle involving the credit card. After a two drive down a bumpy road we reach the small town of P. Here we spend an hour doing some shopping for lunch and then go down the ironmongers to get some nuts and bolt to fix the seat on the canoe, We already have some tape to fix the leak.

After everyone is back on board we drive around the maze of dirt roads in the pineapple plantations until we find the put-in for the Tres Amigos. This time we find it quite easily!



This river is a beautiful limpid green colour and runs in dappled shade as the trees lean over the river. Some people take a swim to cool off whilst we fix the canoe.

David and I take the repaired boat, and we take a bailer too. It still leaks in a slow way! We have a very pleasant days paddling on a very pleasant river. David has his first day without falling in! That's not counting the Rio Frio yesterday which has no rapids.



After the take-out we have another long drive to the Laguna del Lagarto which is a beautiful wildlife lodge. Its 7.15pm by the time we arrive so its a quick shower and change for everyone before dinner.

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.