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Municipality in Río San Juan Department, Nicaragua
Photo: Hobbitschuster, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
El Castillo is a town in Rio San Juan department of Nicaragua. Since 1995, the fortress has been on a "tentative list" of important Nicaraguan cultural sites with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a preliminary to nomination for consideration as a World Heritage Site.
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Reserva Biológica Indio Maíz
This national park covers a large region ranging from just beyond El Castillo to San Juan del Norte (aka San Juan de Nicaragua) and northwards. Typically it is visited either in a day trip from El Castillo, or by staying at the Refugio Bartola on the edge of the park. There are plentiful guides providing such trips from El Castillo and the Refugio, who will provide you with the requisite rubber boots. Visitors will see verdant and varied rain forest vegetation, and are very likely to also see various types of monkey, leaf cutter ants, poison dart frogs, and plentiful bird life, with other wildlife sightings possible. In March/April 2018 there were significant fires in the region to which the government responded slowly and rejected Costa Rican aid, causing protests which were soon overshadowed by protests against a social security reform which left to several dead and the ongoing (as of July 2018) civil conflict in the country. It is not fully clear how much of the reserve is still biologically intact or what caused the conflagration.
The fortress is crumbling a bit, but it offers great views of the river and the rapids that made this place a strategic location for a fortress in the first place.
doubles as a guesthouse
Montecristo River Lodge
All inclusive: room, all meals, use of horses, canoes, kayak, trails, fishing gear.
You can get in from San Carlos at the south-east corner of the Lago Nicaragua (also known as Cocibolca) by boat (C$75 pp = US$4).
Read in the guideEl Castillo is walkable and doesn't have any cars. The locals aren't used to cycling (though it is not explicitly prohibited) and there are none for rent.
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La Fortuna · Regional · FON
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Articles and travel topics about El Castillo and Nicaragua.
ItinerariesRuta de Tránsito is in Southern Nicaragua, traversing the country from coast to coast through the jungle along the San Juan river and past one of the largest lakes in Latin America — Lake Nicaragua.
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Culture & historyThe Maya civilization was one of the great Mesoamerican and Pre-Columbian civilizations. The Maya were renowned for having the most sophisticated and developed writing system in the Western Hemisphere as well as their…
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Culture & historyFortified locations, military constructions, or buildings, have been built from antiquity all the way to the present. At many archaeological sites and in some old towns they are the dominant structures.
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Culture & historyBaseball has been considered America's pastime since at least the 1850s and today remains one of the biggest sports in the country.
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