Nicaragua: Contra to what you think

We rotor across water the temperature and color of tea. In the middle distance the mile-high Mombacho Volcano lushly blends with an uncertain sky. We glide beneath a rainbow of feathers, from tropic cormorants to Amazon kingfishers to green herons. Along the shore are bright emerald clusters of sea lettuce (Chlorophyta), water hyacinth, giant mango trees, the fruit tree called poponjoche, and the bright-blossomed national flower, the Sacuanjocheink. Outlying islands look like green animals in repose. The whole world seems alive here, top to bottom.

Like Mesoamerican warriors we whip back to shore, and seize one of the many horse-drawn buggies that spindle in and about the dreamlike city of Granada.  Not long ago the ghosts of the Chorotega Indians haunted this city, crossing telephone wires to kindle intrigue and evocations of clashes with the Spanish who settled here in 1524, one of the earliest foreign settlements on the continent. But self-pity is absent now. The mood is one of hope, lambent optimism for the future, and the streets are busy, wares, from hammocks to human hair brushes to hawksbill turtle shells, are being hawked with zest; children are skylarking in the alleys.

Michael takes the seat looking backwards, quipping it is because he likes looking back to a land that is like Costa Rica 27 years ago. We clop along past Spanish-style pastel-hued houses, under palms and pepper trees, by clumps of old men with leathery skin stretched tight over high, sharp bones, alongside energetic murals, beneath baroque cathedrals with big cedar doors, and beside shops flogging crocodile boots and Cuban cigars. We make it to San Juan de Oriente, the ceramic capital of the country. But unlike destinations where touro-dollars have spawned factories of kitsch, here the craftsman work in small cooperatives, or from their homes, and create superb works celebrating a pre-Columbian style. We watch in one darkened room as a master spins the clay to a plate while his young daughter crouches in the corner doing her homework, a tableau unique to this time and place.

During the California gold rush ships sailed south from New York to the mouth of Nicaragua’s Rio San Juan. Gold miners then boated up the 100-mile-long river to Lago de Nicaragua, and then made a 15 mile overland trek to the Pacific Ocean, where another ship took them north to San Francisco. This was also the route that for many years was considered the preferential path for a trans-ocean canal, but politics (and caveats about the dangers of volcanoes) pushed it to Panama. Now we trundle this route that never was the final miles towards the Pacific. A couple miles before the coast we turn down a dirt road outstanding in the number and quality of its ruts to make our way to the first five-star eco-resort in Nicaragua, Morgan’s Rock Hacienda and Ecolodge.

Named not for Captain Morgan of pirate and rhum fame, but rather Alabama Senator John Tyler Morgan (1824-1907) who championed the Nicaraguan canal route, the resort sits atop a shimmering bay overlooking a giant reef crag that the honorable Morgan supposedly proclaimed as the Pacific egress of the canal.

Sally Solaro Kayaks at the ready on Lago de Nicaragua.

Michael Kaye wrote the urtext on ecolodges. And as we step up the German-engineered suspension bridge to our bluff chalets on a curved hillside above the bay, he observes that Morgan’s Rock benefits from the “low expectation factor.” Nobody really believes Nicaragua could host an Aman-style eco-resort.

The chalets have their backs to the hillside and their fronts up on stilts, creating the impression of being in a tree house. The main rooms are open on two sides, giving floor-to-ceiling views out through the trees to the beach and the sea. The effect is to blur the boundaries between inside and out. “Awesome,” Sally, who is a critic of Andrew Harperesque standards, appraises.

Spacious and intricately designed, the chalets combine contemporary simplicity and traditional materials. The columns are polished trunks of eucalyptus trees, the floor is made from thick boards of a lustrous dark reddish wood known as guapinol, and the walls are hand-cut chunks of volcanic rock. The furniture is all hand-made by local artisans. There are open-air showers, private gardens, and terrace decks, where locally grown coffee is served pre-breakfast.

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