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The Río San Juan slices through Central America for 120 miles, beginning at Lake Nicaragua, forming a long stretch of the border with Costa Rica and ending at the Caribbean Sea. As early as the 16th century, conquistador Hernán Cortés is said to have written to the King of Spain: "He who possesses the Rio San Juan could be considered the owner of the world." View of the mouth of Rio San Juan at Lake Nicaragua and the town of San Carlos from the prop plane At the height of the

The coast north and south of San Juan del Sur is undeveloped, wild and beautiful. Tiny villages spread out from the beaches, with cattle, pigs and chickens roaming the dirt roads. The town of San Juan del Sur has grown up from a small fishing village to ground zero for Nicaraguan surfing. It is has Victorian clapboard houses, a few decent restaurants and a steady stream of young international visitors. A cruise port is getting built on the edge of the crescent beach here so w

Like much of Central America, Nicaragua has a complicated history with the U.S. Most of us may remember the Iran Contra affair - the 1986 scandal in which the Reagan administration illegally sold weapons to Iran in order to fund the Nicaraguan soldiers trained by the U.S. to overthrow the Sandinista government under Daniel Ortega. I was in graduate school in the late 90’s, earning a Master’s degree in public policy, and Central America factored prominently in our foreign poli

We hung around in León for a few days to partake in the most unnatural of pursuits. Cerro Negro (Black Hill) is an active volcano about 45 minutes outside of the city. It is a relatively new one at only 161 years old. Because the cone is primarily made up of small grains of volcanic rock, it’s possible to ride or surf down the steep slope on a wooden sled. Supposedly this is the only place in the world where you can do this - go volcano boarding. I figured hey, we’re here so