RovingMind: Cocibolca (#3 in river series)

Preparing to get underway.

Aboard the good ship Gustavo Orozco, about to shove off on its regular Friday run north, all hands were in a festive mood.

Passengers who had been strangers lugging backpacks on minutes before were chatting each other up like old friends. Captain and crew flitted around us like social butterflies. It was like the commencement of an ocean voyage, and in a sense it was just that.

With departure at 1700 from San Carlos, it would be thirteen hours across the lake to Granada, with a stop at Ometepe Island for passengers and cargo. An all-night steam through what was essentially a small, inland sea.

Known as the Mother Lake of Nicaragua, it is the most revered place in the entire country. Early inhabitants of the area called it Cocibolca, which means roughly clear waters, good waters. The Spanish referred to it El Mar Dulce, The Sweet Sea.

The largest lake in Central America, at a hundred miles across, the water is anything but clear or sweet now. Urban sewage and agricultural run-off have taken their tolls, and the color is more brownish with an acrid odor than clear.

Nonetheless, it's a huge expanse of fresh water, and provides host for a variety of wildlife and fish , including tarpon, sawfish, and sharks...yes, sharks.

Bull sharks have been proven to exist in salt or in fresh water worldwide. In this case, they migrate in and out of the lake using the Rio San Juan. Coming in from the Caribbean, they've been observed jumping the rapids at El Castillo almost like salmon.

As stunning as it may be on a sunny day, with sparkling surface and imposing volcanic islands, Cocibolca is not always a gentle giant. It has a reputation for lashing winds and powerful, even violent storms, whipping up almost out of nowhere...something that we were about to find out.

Good-bye to San Carlos.

Calm conditions as we make for open water.

A type of segregation was practiced aboard the Orozco. Foreigners, or tourists, pay nine dollars U.S. for the passage and ride up on the second deck. Locals, or Nicaraguans, pay less and go to the first deck. This is designed, I think, to give the Nicas a break financially.

However, the way that it plays out -- fewer people are up topside, so you can spread yourself out and it's more comfortable. But being higher up, the motion of the boat is worse up there, too. Often much worse. In other words, when heavy weather strikes, the second deck is not the place to be.

We found this out about four hours into the voyage: Instead of hatches being closed with a clang and latched, suddenly they were slammed by fierce winds. People were stumbling across the aisles or sprawling outright across bench seats due violent actions of the boat.

I looked out to see us battered by angry waves, the tops churned white by the winds. My god, I thought, it's like the North Atlantic.

As the night wore on, we picked spots on the cushioned benches to lay out and did our best to sleep. But the constant pounding on the hull and creaking and crashing about the boat made it difficult. I laid out with my head below a window, only to have smelly water dripping down onto my face. Splash was flying up all the way to the second deck, then leaking past the rubber liner!

The only passengers on their feet were the ones bolting for the marine heads, faces pale, palms cupped in front of the mouths. So much for the festive mood of earlier.

The wharf at Ometepe -- in calmer conditions.

Near midnight, the stopover at Ometepe Island provided a welcome respite. Waves were still impacting ship and shore, but at least we were tied up now, not ploughing through them. The captain had swung us into the concrete pier nicely enough -- quite a feat considering the howling conditions. However, still reacting to the extreme motions of the boat, hardly anyone got up.

Eventually I managed to my knees, to peer out the window -- and see one of the strangest sights of all my travels:

Dockworkers were tromping the gangway; hunched forward, bunches of bananas across their backs. Bathed in moonlight, showers of spray exploding about them, they were like worker ants stocking up a colony. A volcanic mountain, easily visible in the full moon, loomed in the distance, and added to the eeriness of the scene.

After about an hour, we chugged back out -- and into the ongoing tempest.

Banana boat -- at the wharf in Granada, finally.

Like some kind of swarmy cosmic joke, we made Granada approximately as the wind died down. Those of us who had been up topside staggered off and practically threw ourselves onto good ol' Mother Earth. The Nicas, who rode it out closer to the boat's center, had a better time of it. Most of them walked off gabbing and with a spring in their steps.

Oh well. You'll have this once in a while, I've found, seeing the world -- a rough patch now and then.

So we wobbled off into the gray dawn, toward the steeples of Granada, a wonderful colonial-style city in its own right. However, as good as the food is there, and inexpensive, I doubted that I'd be eating any for a while.