Greg Brantner Presents: My Once and Future Mustache...: Nica Stories: Escape to Monte Cristo

Tales from a non-traditional honeymoon...

This fourth post, about a hidden gem buried down stream in the Rio San Juan, involves fist-sized spiders and flying monkeys. Still interested? Previously, I've written about volcanos, lagoons, and two-person dance parties. As I dig through my trip photos, site by site, I wonder just how many more of these I can come up with. I reached the conclusion that I could feasibly be writing these until our bronze (8th year) anniversary. So time to stop dilly-dallying, and get to writing...

Tales from Monte Cristo

Me: "Is it poisonous?"

Melody: "Of course it is! You don't get to be that big without telling other animals not to eat you!"

Me: "Crap!"

--Referring to the brightly-colored, massive spider staring through our souls from the bathroom window--

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

* I'll start this post with a disclaimer that no part of the history of Monte Cristo that I'm about to detail is likely true. I've learned some small facts over my many visits there, and filled in the gaps with wildly imaginative theories. My actions, and those of my friends, family and wife however, are entirely valid. Enjoy!

My tiny Peace Corps town, San Carlos, is roughly 8 hours by bus from Nicaragua's capital, Managua. Or so it used to be; now it's only 4 because they've paved the highway - but whatever, for purposes of this story, I'm saying 8 hours. 8 hours in a 1970's era school bus on unpaved roads, dust billowing through the windows, bumping up and down uncontrollably, teeth chattering, bladder squashing, hefty Nica grandma forearm-bulge invading your personal space. If you know me, I've bored you with this story before. So for now, this is what it takes to get to San Carlos from Managua.

Somehow you have arrived in Managua, then taken the bus (see above) to San Carlos...now what? Future posts will detail the trouble you can get into in San Carlos. This one is about what happens when you go further down the river, deeper into the jungle, closer to Costa Rica, separating yourself from civilization even more by hopping into a long and narrow boat (panga in the local parlance) made out of what appears to be rental property quality bathtub plastic, and tell the captain - a 22-year old kid with baggy jeans, a clean, stiffly-starched short-sleeve polo shirt, rock-hard gelled hair slicked back, and just the faintest intention of a mustache - "Take me to Monte Cristo!"

Melody on plastic duty to shield us from the raging rains of the Rio San Juan (below)

Choppy waters and distant rainfall on the way to Monte Cristo

So what the heck is this place with the familiar name?

Two hours from San Carlos by panga (that new word you learned in the previous paragraph) lies Monte Cristo, a self-sustaining eco-lodge that resides on the banks of the Rio San Juan. The owner, Augustin Llanes, lives there with a skeleton crew that specializes in great hospitality in the most unlikely of regions in the world.

Augustin puts you up in spacious yet quaint bungalows with, among less important accommodations, internal plumbing and running water, something of an anomaly in this region. The rooms are comfortable enough to get a good night's rest, yet rustic to the extent that a small part of you feels like you're roughing it.

Front view of our cabin

Front view of my foot, and the view from the back of our romantic bungalow

The reasons to go there are many, and the best see the visitor taking advantage of unique opportunities provided by the land and the creatures that inhabit it. Its primary source of eco-tourism comes from the massive fishing tournaments that are part of the Rio San Juan's lore, where fishermen (and women) come from all over the globe (seriously) to pull tarpons the size of high-schoolers out of the majestic river (seriously).

You can hike or ride horses into the massive farm/jungle, where you're just as likely to stop and pick a pear as you are to interrupt a family of howler monkeys engaging in raucous banter. Canoeing, kayaking and fishing tours are all options; depending on your comfort level, you can go it unsupervised, or request a guided tour.

It's a free-for-all in terms of how you plan your stay. Once you arrive at Monte Cristo's dock and walk up the thatched roof-covered outside stairs, you chat with Augustin, probably over beers, and tell him what you're interested in - then you go from there. For the flexible travel who prefers to arrive at a location, then decide how to spend the time, this place is an absolute marvel.

So you know which dock to depart

The entry stairs have a very eco look and feel

This is a blessing, because you never know when you'll want to get dirty traipsing through a rainforest or down a river in a kayak, or when all that you really want is to enjoy coffee and mangos while reading in a hammock for three hours. At Monte Cristo, it doesn't really matter.

And now for the probably-not-so-true back story...

It's my completely uninformed opinion that this plot of land was confiscated by Daniel Ortega and the Sandinista government back in the 1980's, and given to a local party supporter - let's call him Geribaldo Llanes - to build up as a strategic military post.

The Rio San Juan has been historically mentioned as a possible location for a large-scale canal (think Panama Canal), the main point of relevance for this out-of-the-way river that connects the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of Nicaragua. This chatter has even cropped up recently, as "tests" are being currently run by the new Sandinista Government (still run by Ortega, of course).

The Rio San Juan also connects to the Rio Frio, which takes you on a brief, one-hour panga ride into neighboring Costa Rica. The Ticos and Nicas have a tenuous friendship much like that of you and your brother - equal parts love, hatred, bullying, annoying, instigating, back-slapping, towel-spinking and rum sharing. That is to say, there are good times, and there are fractured times, just like with brothers.

So Ortega gave Geribaldo (again, not a real person; maybe not even a real name) this land near what he didn't realize was the end of the Nicaraguan civil war, and when he was beaten in a free election by Violetta Chamorro, Monte Cristo (which had not yet been anointed so) was just another piece of Sandinista land on a list of many that had to be "dealt with".

Though strategic to the region, the Rio San Juan feels like another country from Managua, so likely Geribaldo wasn't hassled to return the land, and it wasn't deemed worth the hassle to appropriate to the incoming government, which had a rather long list of action-items on its plate, the first of which was to stop its citizens from trying to kill each other.

Geribaldo, not one to miss an opportunity, begun turning it into an eco-lodge as a way to draw tourists further down the river. Finding false commonalities with Alexandre Dumas's character Edmond Dantes, he named the place Monte Cristo, and went to work building the infrastructure that, years later, Agustin would use to host, among other tourists, myself, fellow PC volunteers, Melody, my brothers and mother.

Again...none of this is likely true...

What are my favorite memories from Monte Cristo?

I've visited this lush vacation spot roughly half a dozen times, and have always been rewarded with a unique and intriguing experience. The thread that ties these moments together lies not entirely in the activity, but the friends and family with whom I'm sharing the moment. If I want to see flying monkeys, all I have to do is pop in a copy of The Wizard of Oz. But watching them in real life, sitting in a wooden rocking chair next to my wife...that's something special (see below). So in no particular order:

Attack of the Killer West African Bees - Or that's what we told ourselves after Matt was attached on horseback by a family of bees. They somehow found a path inside his shirt, stinging him no less than eighteen times. We retreated back to our cabin as Matt's chorus of "Ow's!", "What the F's!" and "Are you kidding me's?" both rose in urgency and made us chuckle. Augustin brought rum for us to wipe on the stings - he had no less than 18 of them - which relieved Matt of a small amount of pain. He also brought out a few cold Tona's, so we could kick back and laugh over the experience. All of us except for Matt, that is.
Monster Spider - Melody and I were enjoying a nice night looking out into the dark nothingness that is the Rio San Juan at nighttime. We had rum, cigars, music and what I can only imagine was witty banter, but were sorely lacking munchies. A quick jaunt back to the cabin for some of the street goods we purchased earlier in the day seemed like it was harmless...that is until Melody yelled for me to come into the bathroom. Perched on one of the window slats above the bathroom sink was a spider as colorful as a losing paintball contestant, and as big as a grapefruit. Thoroughly creeped out, I fulfilled my husbandly duties by attempting - though failing - to swat it away with a dusty magazine. We settled on closing the slats, hoping to imprison the beast behind bars for the remainder of our stay. We never solved the mystery of how it breached our room's interior, and more importantly, I had to sleep on the side of the bed that was below the window for the rest of our stay.

As a side note on this topic, lizards also joined us in our room, to less frightening consequences. These are the small ones whose tails fall off when you grab them. In fact, we had one that spent almost the entire weekend inside our shower. Now seeing a lizard in your shower in and of itself isn't considerably scary, however once your brain processes the fact that a massive spider has also appeared inside that very same cabin, it makes a cognitive leap that has frightening psychological consequences.

Canoeing with the Dudes - Four years ago I guided some pals on a two week excursion through Costa Rica and Nicaragua, staying one night at Monte Cristo. Nick, Zach, Chad and I loaded our gear into two wooden canoes and paddled two hours east towards the town of El Castillo. On that trip, we ~~learned a lot about each other~~ goofed around a lot. While none of us capsized, we shared some great stories, cracked jokes and made fun of each other, all while marveling at the amazingly green landscape around us. The herds of cows, the cranes perched on one leg for no particular reason, the sunbathing turtles and jumping tarpons. El Castillo was quite a sight when it entered our view, but it is the shared experiences of the journey to get there that stand out in my mind.
Flying Monkeys - With a nasty storm approaching, and Melody and I in for the evening, we saw a family of monkeys jump from one set of trees to another, fifteen or so yards away. We sat on the back patio, astonished to see something straight out of a Nat Geo special. The parent figure guided the little one first, and it abided by hurling its body in the air, gut forward, hands, feet and head arched back, just like in the cartoons. It connected with a group of leafy branches twenty yards lower than its leaping off point. Surprised to see the first family, we were mind-blown to see an additional ten monkeys follow suit, all flying in front of us, with the river blanketing the background. Not sure where they headed, but we heard them roaring all night long, sounding like a cross between Darth Vader and the raptors from Jurassic Park.
Food - The food is some of the best I have had in the country that isn't purchased from an old lady in the street. Agustin uses a variety of fresh fruits (hello starfruit!) and vegetables that are picked straight from gardens on the resort. The meats he uses come from animals that we either saw earlier in the day (oink oink, moo moo) or canoed by (fish sound here). Fruit smoothies - or favorite is the luminescent purple pitaya - are served with most meals. There's usually a unique garlic sauce or chilero, and with a rare focus on plate presentation, the result is a meal straight out of a travel brochure...but better.

These are a few of my favorites memories from Monte Cristo, and I hope to add to this list with each visit. I don't imagine I'll ever stop visiting my host family, and let's be honest, if I've made it that far, what's another few hours downstream. Enjoy the rest of the pictures from this amazing place. Next up...El Castillo.