Finding Serenity on Laguna de Apoyo, Nicaragua
Our plan of staying just a single night in Laguna de Apoyo would have quickly been foiled if we did not have a Treehouse Airbnb waiting with our name on it in our next stop in Nicaragua. By the time dinner rolled around on the evening we arrived, we had already cancelled a pre-planned volcano outing in favor of spending more time on this pristine, quiet lake. Several of the other travelers we met at Apoyo Lodge (~80 USD per night) did extend their stays longer than they had expected. How excited we were to learn that we loved Apoyo is connected to, frankly, how little we initially expected from it.
Of the other stops we made on this trip, Granada has its deep colonial history, Isla Ometepe is an impressive island formed by two massive volcanos, and San Juan del Sur is the surf town with chill vibes. Laguna de Apoyo, in contrast, is the serene, glassy lake where there is (seemingly) little to do. Yes, our Airbnb involved a yoga class and homemade meals but what we didn't expect was the community and the ultimate peace we found in the moments we connected most with nature. For example, watching a lightning storm roll in over the lake, for an uninterrupted hour, in the complete pitch darkness.
Getting to the Apoyo Lodge from our hotel in Granada should have been a simple 14 mile drive. This ended up being our first real introduction to the perpetually bumpy and poorly maintained roads of Nicaragua. Having visited Costa Rica in 2012, I had a certain expectation of the tourism infrastructure in neighboring Nica. It turns out that my predetermined comparison of the two countries missed key historical data that meaningfully changed the course of advancement for these two ostensibly similar places.
Both countries declared independence from Spain in 1821 however, since then, the trajectories shifted; Costa Rica went on to have a relatively violence-free future, grew its urban centers and forthcoming opportunities in tourism. Nicaragua, contrarily, fell subject to government corruption and violence, eventually collapsing into a civil war and unrest from the 1960s to the 1990s during which the United States supported the Contra forces.
Only recently did the country become a popular destination for foreign travelers (a US economic embargo on Nica was lifted in 1990) which is helpful to understand why the groundwork for tourism was not laid and visitors still see signs of development in progress. For me, this juxtaposition was one of the most captivating aspects of Nicaragua and all of its virtually untouched beauty.
The United States involvement and impact is still palpable today. Consider the way in which you can pay for any transaction using the currency of Nicaragua Córdobas or US Dollars (1 USD = 31 NIO). It was notable on our trip that native Nicaragüenses have US currency so ubiquitous in their daily lives but proportionally few speak English.
Over 20,000 years ago, a volcanic eruption created this crater that eventually became filled with water and wildlife. We immediately dropped our things in the room after making it through the rough car ride and changed into swimwear to investigate what is now the crater lake in a sleeping volcano known as Laguna de Apoyo. With several hours of daylight left, we had our choice of water sports equipment provided by the Apoyo Lodge and access to their private lakefront.
Floating aimlessly on a tube, glancing to see small fish in the clear, greenish water was quite the relaxer. That is... until we heard loud screeching. These sounds were something between a roar and a squeal and they echoed every few minutes across the abundant trees lining the lake. At one point I actually remarked to Joe that I thought we may be safer in the water than out of it. The sound was frightening. It took about a day afterwards for the light bulb to click on - howler monkeys! Significantly less menacing than they sound but they certainly made themselves known that day as the sun began to dip over the lake.
We traded our tube to another couple for their paddle board which Joe and I took turns sitting on and attempting to learn how to stand up paddle board without any context. Our bodies broke the surface of the lake several times as we flopped off the board. It takes serious abdominal strength and balance to SUP and if I lived near the ocean it's something I'd like to learn.
A big draw for me to the Apoyo Lodge was their incredibly cool yoga platform, essentially suspended on the lake. At 7:00 in the morning each day they hold a free, all-levels yoga class for lodgers. We happily attended, as an early bedtime the night prior was easy to accomplish with very few distractions around. While the instructor was patient with the class of beginners, I was eager to test the Vinyasa skills I had been working on in my weekly class at home in New York.
We breathed, stretched and twisted slowly together as a group (six of us total), waking up a bit more with each posture. Towards the end of the session, as our thoughts began to turn to desayuno, the instructor worked with me on my headstand - a pose I had been practicing holding up against a wall at the gym for the preceding several months. This was the first time, on a glistening lake in Nicaragua, that I was able to hold the pose without assistance. A huge personal accomplishment that I felt tied me further in my connection to Apoyo.
Breakfast at Apoyo Lodge was a homemade combination of local ingredients involving the most natural smoothie bowl I've tasted and the drink that was quickly becoming my favorite, bright pink jugo de pitaya. The nourishing meal was made comfortable by the flowing conversation among travelers who found themselves sitting at this table. There were two separate couples from Germany, an Australian, and an American who had been living in Nicaragua for some time. The existence of young American expats we would later find to be pervasive in the southern town of San Juan del Sur.
There is a very beautiful type of travel that exists in being able to go from place to place on a completely flexible schedule. Perhaps just booking flights to and from a country or continent and somehow winding through different towns and sights until you land on the airplane heading home.
The stay in Laguna de Apoyo was the first time in recent memory that I felt an almost nostalgic desire for this kind of space from the heartbeat of everyday life in New York and the ability to stay somewhere that I connected with, even if it wasn't on the schedule. When I was 21 I left my summer studies in Paris to traverse Luxembourg and Belgium alone but, even then, I had hostels planned each night and knew where I would be going. The detailed planner in me is hard pressed to take a day off.
Maybe there will be a day where I will be in a position to take off on the road and find my way back home, a freer spirit than I have been since I began laying down roots in my adult life. What I do know from this one night stay, on a lake so smooth it became a mirror for the sky, is that it is possible to find pieces of that liberated, backpacker attitude even on a trip so meticulously planned as our week in Nicaragua.
Next stop: Isla Ometepe