Into The Jungle With The Explorers Club: Mapping Nicaragua’s Ancient Petroglyphs

When the flag of The Explorers Club is unfurled, it carries with it more than a century of discovery. It has flown at both poles, beneath the sea, and even on the surface of the moon. In August 2025, that same flag was loaded onto small boats, carried through the jungle, and unfurled above stones carved by ancient hands in the heart of Nicaragua. This was not a journey about breaking speed records or planting a banner on uncharted peaks. It was about listening to the past, finding stories left in stone, and documenting them for future generations.

The Road South

The expedition began not in the depths of the jungle, but at the Houston airport. Initially, the plan had been to drive our Meyers Manxster project across Mexico and down into Nicaragua. But due to security concerns in Mexico, the kind that shut down the Chihuahua Express earlier this year, driving was not advisable, and shipping logistics didn’t work with our timeline. We are planning to ship the Manxster to Costa Rica next year and continue the work we started on this trip.

We landed in Managua and were met by my old friend Pedro, who would help drive and cordondate the trip for us. Leaving the capital city, we headed Northeast towards Rio Blanco. The Hilux rattled across highways and dirt tracks, covering miles of farmland, volcano-shadowed plains, and pastel-painted villages.

The goal was simple but ambitious: map, photograph, and record petroglyphs scattered across the country, many of which exist only as whispered references in anthropological footnotes or as landmarks known to local families. Some sites were near roadsides; others required hikes through dense vegetation or boat rides down swollen rivers.

The Explorers Club: Carvings in Stone

Nicaragua’s petroglyphs are enigmatic markers of its pre-Columbian cultures. They appear on boulders overlooking rivers, carved into hillsides, or hidden in caves. Spirals, animals, human figures, and abstract designs adorn these stones. Some may represent calendars, others mythic stories, still others boundaries or ceremonial sites.

The act of mapping them is both scientific and spiritual. GPS coordinates and photographs create a record that archaeologists and researchers can study, but standing in front of carvings that have survived centuries of rain, sun, and upheaval is to stand in conversation with people who lived in these lands long before Columbus sighted the Caribbean.

Down the Río Grande

One of the most challenging segments of the expedition took place along the Río Grande de Matagalpa. Unlike the border river of the same name between Texas and Mexico, this Río Grande is an artery flowing through Nicaragua’s interior, winding past jungle banks and steep cliffs. This part is where the trip really started to feel like we were on an expedition.

The team loaded gear, including The Explorers Club flag, into narrow fiberglass boats powered by outboard motors. The river was alternately tranquil and menacing, glass-smooth stretches suddenly giving way to rapids and hidden rocks. Each bend revealed new vistas: scarlet macaws flashing across the treeline, fishermen casting nets from dugout canoes, and children waving from homesteads tucked along the shore.

Along this river, we arrived at a site covered in glyphs, some half-submerged, others rising from the banks like altars. Getting to them would mean wading through knee-deep water or scrambling across slick stone, but the water was rising too fast. The river’s unpredictability meant we could only photograph, record coordinates, and then take a quiet moment simply to look from the boats.

We returned to the dock with plans to return in 2026 during a different season with the hopes that the water will be lower and allow us to see more of the riverside carvings.

Into the Jungle

The next day we had about a five hour drive to a trailhead, and the real work began on foot. Hiking into the jungle is not a romantic stroll beneath green canopies. It is sweat, mud, mosquitoes, and the constant chorus of cicadas. The air hangs heavy with humidity, and every step carries the possibility of slipping on moss or startling some unseen creature. This region of Nicaragua is primarily composed of pine trees with a mix of tropical fauna and cactus.

Guided by locals who knew the terrain, the team trekked for miles to reach remote sites. Some glyphs were etched into stones that looked like ordinary boulders until the sun hit at the right angle, revealing spirals and figures. Others sat on cliff faces with sweeping views of valleys, suggesting their placement was as symbolic as it was practical.

Every The Explorers Club expedition faces challenges, and this one was no exception. Tropical downpours turned trails into rivers of mud, and mechanical issues with vehicles and boats threatened to delay progress. But exploration thrives in difficulty. Each obstacle overcome meant one more site documented, one more glyph recorded. At night, we would find a hotel, review photographs, plot maps, and plan the next day’s routes.

Carrying equipment, cameras, GPS devices, notebooks, water, made the climbs harder, but the reward was always the same: documenting another chapter of Nicaragua’s ancient story.

The Weight of History

These glyphs belong to cultures about which little is definitively known. The Chorotega, Nicarao, and other indigenous groups left behind fragments of pottery, ruins of villages, and oral traditions, but much was lost in the upheaval of conquest and colonization.

Researchers debate the meanings of the symbols. Some spirals may represent water or the cosmos. Figures with raised arms could be shamans or deities. Animal shapes might point to hunting practices or mythologies. What is clear is that the people who carved them wanted their stories remembered. By mapping them, the expedition adds to a growing archive that ensures they are not erased by time, neglect, or development.

The Explorers Club Flag

At each site, The Explorers Club flag was raised and photographed. It is a ritual as old as the Club itself, but it also serves as a reminder that exploration is not just about discovery; it is about stewardship. Holding that flag in the jungle, far from the skyscrapers of New York or the lecture halls of universities, tied the work to a lineage of explorers who believed curiosity is a responsibility.

Why go to such lengths to document carvings that many might dismiss as scratches on rocks? The answer lies in both heritage and future. Nicaragua’s petroglyphs are part of humanity’s shared story. They connect us to the ingenuity and spirituality of people who thrived without modern tools, who left behind symbols that still resonate.

Preserving these records also guards against loss. Development, erosion, and even vandalism threaten sites. By creating an accessible archive, the expedition provides researchers, historians, and local authorities with tools to protect and study them.

Moreover, such work shines a light on Nicaragua itself, a country often overshadowed in global headlines by politics or natural disasters. A country whose people I greatly admire. Its cultural heritage is rich, and we hope that sharing the history of the region encourages pride among locals and curiosity among outsiders.

A Journey’s End

When the expedition finally rolled back across the country, dusty, mosquito-bitten, and with a tan line from my watch, we carried more than just gear. We carried a record of sites visited, thousands of photographs, GPS coordinates, and stories told by villagers and guides.

The adventure had been one of contrasts: ancient stones and modern vehicles, academic rigor and childlike wonder, disappointment and exhilaration. It was also a reminder that exploration is not about planting flags in places unseen, but about preserving what is already there.

The flag returned with new chapters to add to The Explorers Club archives. The stones remain in Nicaragua, where they always have been, whispering stories to anyone willing to listen. But now, thanks to the miles driven, the rivers crossed, and the jungles hiked, their voices carry a little further.

The Next Expedition

The Explorers Club expedition is not an end but a beginning. Mapping petroglyphs in Nicaragua is part of a larger effort to document pre-Columbian cultures across Central America. Each carving recorded adds a piece to the puzzle. The hope is that future scholars, explorers, and local communities will build on this work once it is published, studying, protecting, and celebrating the heritage carved in stone.

For our small group that carried the flag through mud and down the river, the memories remain vivid: the dust of a dirt road, the sudden hush of the jungle before rain, the thrill of finding yet another carving. Exploration is made up of such moments. They are not always glamorous, but they are always worth it.

And somewhere in Nicaragua, spirals and figures etched in rock centuries ago now live again, in photographs, in maps, and in the minds of those who sought them out. The journey proved what explorers have always known: the past is never truly gone, if we are willing to go far enough to find it.