A traveler races against bad weather to visit the isolated village of Punta Aguila, Nicaragua, where she investigates whether boutique hotels and boat tours can raise the standard of living in a region where families lack access to education, electricity, and running water. But is ecotourism the answer?
We’re on our way to Punta Aguila, trying to outrun a storm. Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast nearly always has a swirl of gray-blue clouds overhead during the rainy season, but the sky had turned ominous that morning as we prepared to leave Pearl Lagoon, a village to the north.
“You won’t make it,” a man at the dock says, watching us climb into the boat.
“We might,” my friend Mako replies placidly, staring at the clouds.
“Sometimes the weather holds.” His face, tanned despite the tattered pink baseball cap he perpetually wore, is lined and weathered enough to suggest years of looking at the sky and guessing when rain would fall.
I have come to Nicaragua as part of a research team to study the effects of globalization on remote villages. Today I travel with Mako to his hometown of Punta Aguila to document changes in forest patterns. It is a several-hour boat ride and a long uphill walk to his house, and I am anxious not to do it in the rain, when the dirt path becomes slick and hazardous.
Once we are on the water, we make good time, steadily passing villages clustered along the coast. Each house has a square of garden where women tend lemongrass and chili plants, lush from the rains. Children splashing along the shore pause their games to watch us drive by, licking salt from their lips. Someone is baking coconut bread, and its heavy, sweet scent reaches us on the boat, cutting through the sharp air of the sea. I lean back on my seat and watch the thick green band of jungle unroll in front of us. This region is home to the largest expanse of rainforest north of the Amazon, and everywhere towering almond and cedar trees crowd the shore, their leaves dipping into the water.
I unwrap a piece of banana bread, bought early that morning at the nameless bakery across the street from The Green Lodge, the house-turned- hotel where I typically stay. Like nearly all the hotels and restaurants in Pearl Lagoon, The Green Lodge is locally owned by a husband-and-wife team, its furnishings provided by assorted relatives living in the area. As more boutique hotels open up or freshen up, fishermen begin to offer boating and snorkeling tours, and the first-ever taxi arrives in town, Pearl Lagoon has become the epicenter of ecotourism in the region.
For a relatively small town, Pearl Lagoon has a surprising number of restaurants, with food that is, of course, local and fresh. During dinner at the new restaurant Queen Lobster the week before, the cook apologized for the delay in my coconut shrimp. Looking over the water, I watch a small sailboat make its way to the dock. A few minutes later, two men enter with large, gently sloshing buckets. The cook takes them and retreats to the kitchen.
“Your shrimp will be ready shortly,” he calls over his shoulder. Pearl Lagoon is either a long drive or a long boat ride from nearly everywhere else in Nicaragua, and it is astonishing that ecotourism has made its way here and continues to spread. It gives hope to those living in even more remote regions of the coast.
Mako and I reach Punta Aguila at sunset. There is no dock here, along this lonely stripe of sand, so people disembarking must jump over the boat’s side to reach the ground. Last time I disembarked, my feet slipped, and I had fallen across the wavery line where the sand meets the foaming water. The captain remembers that incident, and as I climb out, a hand reaches out to grab my elbow, steady my shoulder.
Safely on solid ground, I pay my fare, and the boat begins the rest of its journey down the coast. Mako beat me at cards last night, so I hand over his winnings as well. Mako takes the bill and folds it, placing it inside his shirt. Nicaraguans keep their money close, over their heart.
“I’m getting closer to buying my own boat,” Mako says as we begin walking. Saving money is no small accomplishment in this part of the world. Largely isolated from the country’s capital and most of its resources, Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast has struggled to drive human development. The region’s illiteracy rate is over 40%, and unemployment is widespread. Ecotourism, and the economic benefits it brings, is an idea that has gained more and more traction in the area. Mako and his mother, June, dream of opening their own guesthouse and tour company where guests will be able to experience this overlooked piece of the country.
The region’s tourism industry is still in its infancy, the bumps not yet smoothed over. Amenities such as pillows and bed linens are difficult for many families to afford, so most guest rooms consist of little more than a bare mattress. Cockroaches and other pests are nearly impossible to eradicate, and I once witnessed a guest abandon her hotel in the middle of the night because she could not handle the region’s little lizards watching her sleep. Tour itineraries are improvised and often haphazard, and for many Nicaraguans, it appears that tourists are an afterthought, something to remember only when the timing is suitable.
“I don’t want to cook for other people today,” a restaurant owner told me once, turning away and retreating into a back room.
Yet there is still a feeling of progress. Since my last visit a year ago, more homes are offering guest rooms, more food stands have appeared, and more men are passing out hand-lettered business cards, advertising boat tours and jungle walks. In Pearl Lagoon, down the street from The Green Lodge, a beautiful, locally-run hotel named Casa Ulrich has recently opened. Painted a warm, glowing orange color, the building contains several nicely furnished rooms, a small dock for boat tours, and its own restaurant, where I had recently enjoyed the best shrimp and pasta I have ever eaten.
The path to Mako’s village is soggy but still manageable, and we arrive before dark. June, her thick arms stirring a pot, waves as we make our way to the house. If this area were developed, a home could sell for millions, with its place on the bluff and a flawless view of the Caribbean. But, for now at least, it is too far and too tiring to reach, so the simple wooden houses, raised on stilts to avoid the sea, are able to remain.
I set my bags down by a soursop tree, its spiky, syrupy-sour fruit hanging just out of reach, and survey the view. There are a few palm trees sprinkled across the hill, the family turkey roosting in the smallest. Pressing against the back of the house is the rainforest, dark and forbidding at night. In all other directions is the sea, and I’ve been here often enough to know the secret places where fish can be caught and kayaks safely paddled. On windy nights, the rushing sound of the sea meets the tumbling cacophony of the forest, mixing together over the village.
The family’s house is as I remember, plain and worn and sturdy. Today, I notice something colorful on one of the walls. It has been affixed with masking tape, thoughtfully placed so that the sun will catch the glossy paper during the day. I walk over and study it. It’s a brochure for a beach resort in Costa Rica, filled with images of water slides and zip lines. I turn to June.
“Do you want to go there?” I ask, indicating the brochure.
She smiles at me, shaking her head. “I want that to come here,” she corrects me. I look around: Punta Aguila has no running water, no electricity. The village is small enough to share a single outhouse. Hurricanes occasionally come to this region, flattening the earth. But Mako and June have few options other than hope. June’s oldest daughter, nearly twelve, has almost reached the end of schooling available to children here. Once graduated, her options are either a costly boarding school or a life tending to her family’s livestock. Her mother and brother are scrambling to fund her education and that of her other siblings.
The promised rain never comes, so that night, Mako and his friends take me on their inaugural jungle tour to look for nocturnal wildlife. We walk out of the village, into the marshy land beyond the houses. As we direct bright lights into the swamp, hoping to spot the eye shine of caimans, the village children come and join us, swishing through the long grass. They crowd around, silent, except for a few whispered words in their native language of Miskito. Mako’s practiced sentences are stumbling, and most of the animals are avoiding us, but standing there, with most of the village gathered around as we peer into the darkness, I feel a sense of potential, of being on the brink of change.
