THE NICARAGUAN LANDSCAPE
To the North of Costa Rica, the relief subsides, and a depression precedes a series of chains rurming eastwards. The great freshwater lake to the south-east of Nicaragua, known as. Cocibolca to the Indians and today more generally known as Gran Lago or Lago de Granada, forms together with the Rio San Juan, its outlet to the sea discovered by Christopher Columbus, the southern frontier of the country. The mountain chain to the South is the Cordillera Chontaleña and to the North the Segoviana. Between the two flows the Rio Matagalpa.
The Cordillera which rises parallel to the Pacific coast is the smallest but contains the impresive, series of Nicaraguan volcanoes - El Cosigüina (859 m) ashes from which, it is told, fell as far as, Jamaica and Colombia during its 1835 eruption.
El San Cristobal (1,745 m), El Chonco (1, 105 La Casita (1,405 m) and
El Telica (1,010 m) whose ashes fertilize the León region. Las
Pilas of a number of small volcanoes, including the famous Carro Negro
(675 m), which became for the f¡rst time in 1850, has erupted several
times over the past century and, quite recently, 1960, caused serious
damage to the town of León and its surroundings with the lava,
stones, ashes it spouted forth.
The
Momotombo (1,280 m) to the north-east of Managua, at the foot of which
was buili first Town of Leon (today known as León Viejo), is
a perfect cone surrounded by a number of smaller cones which are also
perfect, "like a father surrounded by his sons" as the local people
saysdfa, Victor Hugo made it famous in one of his poems.
There are numerous lagoons in the neighbourhood of this part of the
line of volcanocs. most famous of which, in the immediate vicinity of
the capital, is the Jiloá lagoon, which become a bathing resort.
All of them constitute very fine stretches of water and most of them
contained in former craters.
Next comes the Masaya group of volcanoes, with the Santiago (600 m),
the cruption of which, in 1775, nearly destroyed Masaya; it periodically
gives off sulphurous smoke. The Santiago is one of only four volcanoes
in the world which have a crater containing a lake of incandescent lava.
Near the town of Granada and on the shores of the lake of the same name,
there rise the remains of the Monbacho volcano, the cone of which exploded
in prehistoric times, breaking- enormous blocks of stone which were
projected into the lake and now form 318 small islands - Isletas which
are the greatest tourist attraction in Nicaragua.
In the Great Lake the Island of Zapatera is occupied by an extinct volcano
the height which has been reduced to 600 metres by erosion. On the Island
of Ometepe, however, there are two volcanoes which are still active
and threatening - the Concepcion (1,010 m) and the Maderas (1,394 m).
One
of the by-products of Nicaraguan volcanic activity consists of numerous
hot-water springs, about fifty of them, including that at San Jacinto
near León and that at Tipitapa near Managua.
The Great Lake of Nicaragua (3,089 square miles, 100 miles long and
37 miles wide) is 31 metres above the level of the Caribbean Sea. It
is rich in wildlife - crabs, shrimps, shellfish of all kinds, iguanas,
small crocodiles, tortoises and a very wide variety of fish. But the
visitor is most amazed by the presence in this fresh water of swordflsh,
sharks and "megalops atlantious" (sábalo real in Spanish), since
these are generally thought to be saItwater fish. The lake played a
considerable part in the economic life of the country during the Spanish
colonial period. Today, there is hardly any traffic on it but in the
near future it should constitute not only a means of low-cost communications
among those on the surrounding countryside who are playing an increasingly
important part in the production of rice, cattle and other agricultural
produtcs, but also the natural waterway for ships coming from the Atlantic
and the Caribbean Sea to the harbours to be created at Granada and Managua,
thus eliminating the detour through the Panama Canal.
The Lake of Managua, which is only about 400 square miles in area, fairly shallow and much rougher than the waters of the Great Lake, is also called upon to play an important part in the economic life of the country once the level has been controlled and slightly raised by the construction of a dam at Tipitapa and once the quality of the water has been improved. It contains the same fish as those of the Great Lake, except that the sea fish. (shark, etc..) are absent.
The above brief geomorpholical survey of Nicaragua would be incomplete without some mention of the numerous rivers running through the country. During their geological history, streams and rivers have, here more than elsewhere, changed the original relief by erosion of the mountains and valleys, the shores being constantly widened by the sediments deposited on them in large quantities. The rivers which run into the Pacific, unlike those‚ which run from the centre of the country to the Atlantic coast and are long, wide and sinuous, do not cover great distances.
Tie chief rivers on the Pacific side are, from North to South, the Estero
Real, which has a real estuary two kilometres wide at the sea and collects
the waters from a large number of tributaries, a group of rivers in
the Corinto and Puerto Sandino sector, none of which is more than 35
kilometres long, the group in the Tamarindo-Escalantes sector and lastly
those in the Rivas sector.
Numerous rivers in the interior flow into the lakes. These include the
El Viejo (168 km), which is fed by the upper Rio Tuma (which used to
flow into the Caribbean but was diverted to run through the Tuma hydro-electric
power station) and then flows into Managua Lake, as does the much less
important Rio Pacora. The Rio Tipitapa (37 km) is, in fact, the outlet
from the Managua Lake into the Granada Lake.
The Malacatoya (105 km), the Tecolostote (65 km), the Mayales (86 km), the Lovago(66 km) and the Tepenaguasapa (52 km) all flow into the North of the Great Lake, while a few small rivers which run through Costa Rica territory flow into it from the South.
The greatest volume of water collected on Nicaraguan territory flows into the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Major rivers, which rise at an altitude of between 2,400 and 4,000 feet in the central mountain ranges, begin as real torrents in the mountainous part of their course and later widen out at an altitude of 350 feet and flow majestically towards the coastal lagoons and the sea through the dense tropical forests, where they are swollen by rain throughout the year. Several of these rivers are navigable to a distance of 100 kilometres or more for fair-sized ships. They are, from North to South, the Rio Coco (750 km), with its tributary the Bocay, which flows into the sea at Cabo Gracias a Dios, the Huahua (180 km), the Cucalaya (160 km), the Prinzapolka (251 km), the lower Tuma (193 km), which is a tributary of the Rio Grande de Matagalpa (555 km), the Curinhuas (203 km), the Huahuashan (88 km) and the El Escondido (80 km) which is formed by the Siquia, Mico and Rama. The Rio El Escondido and the Managua - Rama road at present constitute the route for the transport of goods between the Pacific and theCaribbean. Further South, the Punta Gorda, Maiz and Indio rivers precede the Rio San Juan, led by the Great Lake, which forms the frontier with Costa Rica.
For further information or reservation please e-mail us nactual@univision.com
|General Info |History |Rubén Darío|Geography |