A magic river flows out of Lago Cocibolca (site of the world's only freshwater sharks) towards the Caribbean. San Carlos is everyone's idea of a steamy tin roofed tropical town, nothing to do but sit in bars with no beer waiting for the boat from Granada across the lake.

I lived there for two magical years in the 80s. I never thought it'd be somewhere the world should know about but I was wrong - it's the gateway to the Río San Juan, the river that flows through jungle to the sound of howler monkeys, past a myriads of birds and other rare animal life, not to mention newly restored 17th-century Spanish colonial river forts designed to keep those pesky Brits out. Nelson among others was here, as were thousands of wannabe gold miners taking the easy way to San Francisco, avoiding Cape Horn in the 1840s and 50s. Go!