by James Spencer
The 120-mile long Rio San Juan River in Nicaragua is one of the most history-laden rivers in the world. For more than 500 hundred years this turbid tropical marine highway has been the route and battleground of pirates, adventurers and conquerors from Spain, Britain, Costa Rica, France, the United States and in recent times even involved battles between CIA backed forces and Russian and Cuban backed communists. Among the many stories the San Juan has to tell is its heyday as a major transit route in the golden age of steamships and Mark Twain’s voyage through Nicaragua aboard one of them.



