Rio San Jaun - San Carlos to El Castillo

The night ferry from Isla de Ometepe to San Carlos was surprisingly comfortable.  I rented this deck chair for $1, which meant I got a little sleep on deck.

Loaded in with the cargo of bananas and platanos.

San Carlos in the morning.  A small town where Rio San Juan starts draining the waters of Lago de Nicaragua.

For two centuries Rio San Juan was planned to be the site of a grand canal joining the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to ships.  However, before the project was commenced the US, under the advice of a feasibility analysis, chose to build the canal in Panama.

This decision has preserved the river and the environments of the massive Lake of Nicaragua.

However, with the Panama canal under the control of the US, a Chinese company has recently gained approval for the building of a canal through Lake Nicaragua.  The canal will not follow Rio San Juan, but will build a large channel through the amazing forests of north east Nicaragua.

See - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_Canal

This is really bad news for the people, wildlife and environments of Nicaragua. Lets hope this project fails for some reason.

El Casitillo:  a fort built by the Spanish when they were pilfering the gold and silver of the local people of central and south America.   Granada was used by the Spanish to store all the gold and silver prior to transport back to the homeland.

Rio San Juan was used by the British Navy and many pirates (including Black Beard) to reach Granada to steal the gold and silver.  El Castillo was one of three forts built to prevent them from reaching Granada.  The defenses of the Spanish failed several times though and there is rumors in the air about many ships full of silver remaining to this day in the depths of Lake Nicaragua....