| Today I had a very exciting story about
everything going wrong on my trip to Ometepe. In short I
walked 3 KMs up a steep mountain to see a waterfall. I
was late coming down, so late and the jeep was
overheating. We put some water in the jeep and could not
get the hood closed right. The hood flew open into the
windshield, later. We were all ok, but it knocked the
rearview window down. We missed the last ferry, as we
were told, and we thought we had to stay on the island
another night. As luck would have it, another boat was
able to take us at 5:30 and we were able to catch a
fantastic meal in Granada
before getting back to the hotel. - Here are a few
pictures I had taken. - Jim 
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is best known not for its stunning
landscapes or vast cultural treasures, but for a war in
which a popular uprising was suppressed by a US-backed
government. The after-effects of these and other setbacks
have left the country in a state of shock from which it
is gradually emerging.
The good news is that throughout this period human rights
have largely been respected and the country's battles are
now confined to the political arena. Nicaragua is a
fascinating destination for those travelers who have an
awareness of history and enjoy getting to know the grass
roots.
Warning
Since the end of the civil war, armed criminal groups
have operated out of the remote sectors of the northern
and central regions including the North Atlantic
Autonomous Region (RAAN), particularly Bonanza and Siuna
and especially along the Honduran border. Travelers
should avoid all but essential travel and, while there,
exercise caution, taking care to travel on major highways
during daylight hours only.
Full country name:
Republic of Nicaragua
Area: 129,494 sq km
Population: 5.2 million
People: 69% mestizo, 17% European descent, 9% African
descent, 5% indigenous peoples
Language: English, Spanish
Religion: Roman Catholic (85%), Protestant (16%)
Government: republic
Head of State: President Enrique Bolaños
GDP: US$1.11 billion
GDP per capita: US$2,200
Inflation: 3.7%
Major Industries: Coffee, seafood, sugar, meat, bananas,
food processing, chemicals, metal products, textiles,
clothing, petroleum refining and distribution, beverages,
footwear
Major Trading Partners: Canada, Japan, Germany,
Venezuela, USA, the rest of Central America
Facts for the
Traveler
Visas: Citizens of the UK, USA, the Scandinavian
countries, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Argentina,
Chile, Bolivia and European Union countries do not need
visas and are issued a tourist card (5.00) valid for 90
days on arrival. Citizens of Australia, Canada, New
Zealand and European countries that do not have
reciprocal agreements with Nicaragua will require either
a visa or a tourist card allowing a 30-day stay.
Health risks: cholera, dengue fever, hepatitis, malaria,
rabies, typhoid
Time Zone: GMT/UTC -6
Dialling Code: 505
Electricity: 120V ,60Hz
Weights & measures: Metric
When to Go
Nicaragua has two distinct seasons, the timing of which
varies from coast to coast. The most pleasant time to
visit the Pacific or central regions is early in the dry
season (December and January), when temperatures are
cooler and the foliage is still lush. With the possible
exception of the last month of the dry season (usually
mid-April to mid-May) when the land is parched and the
air full of dust, there really is no bad time to visit.
Nicaraguans spend Semana Santa (Holy Week) at the beach;
all available rooms will be sold out weeks or even months
in advance.
Events
Each town and city in Nicaragua has annual celebrations
for its patron saint. These celebrations (fiestas
patronales) include distinctive masked processions and
mock battles involving folkloric figures satirizing the
Spanish conquistadors. The most famous of these saints'
days are held in honor of San Sebastian (20 January) and
Santiago (25 July). Managua's main patronal fete is known
as Toro Guaco.
Money & Costs
Currency: Córdoba
Meals
Budget: US$1.50-4
Mid-range: US$4-8
High: US$8-12
Deluxe: US$12+
Lodging
Budget: US$3-10
Mid-range: US$10-15
High: US$15-25
Deluxe: US$25+
Comfortable travel in Nicaragua costs in the range of
US$30 to US$50 a day. A moderate budget will fall in the
US$20 to US$30 a day range if you hire a car
occasionally. Budget travelers can get by on between
US$15 and US$25 a day if they confine themselves to
public transport. The Caribbean Coast is a bit more
expensive than elsewhere in the country.
With the rapid expansion of the banking system,
traveler's checks have become easier to cash, but outside
the capital only a handful of banks provide this service.
Casas de cambio (currency exchange offices) such as
Pinolero and Multicambios provide the service, but it's
not easy to find a bank that will do so. All over
Nicaragua, many moderately priced hotels and restaurants
accept credit cards, and in some parts of the country,
even most of the cheapest places accept them. Note that
Nicaraguan córdobas cannot readily be changed in any
other country.
Most Nicaraguans do not leave tips in inexpensive
restaurants. In good restaurants you could leave up to
10% of the bill. Some restaurants include a service
charge with the bill, and this is usually clearly shown.
Don't confuse a tip with the nationwide 15% value added
tax that is shown on each bill. Be certain to bargain in
large outdoor markets.
Attractions
Managua
The capital of Nicaragua is spread across the southern
shore of Lago de Managua and is crowded with more than a
quarter of Nicaragua's population. It's been racked by
natural disasters, including two earthquakes this
century, and since the 1972 earthquake the city has had
no centre.
Several of Managua's attractions stand around the Plaza
de la República, including the lakeside municipal
cathedral. Near the cathedral is the impressively
restored Palacio Nacional, which has two giant paintings
of Augusto Sandino and Carlos Fonseca at the entrance.
Around Managua
The large volcano at the centre of Parque Nacional
Volcán Masaya, which still steams and belches, is
surrounded by smaller volcanoes and thermal springs.
Legends say that the pre-Hispanic inhabitants of the area
threw young women into the boiling lava to appease
Chaciutique, the goddess of fire.
While the Spanish believed it was the entrance to hell,
there are some heavenly bodies of water. Laguna de
Xiloá, a stunning crater lake northwest of the city is a
favorite swimming spot. El Trapiche, to the southeast,
has spring water channeled into large outdoor pools
surrounded by lush gardens.
Granada
Granada, nicknamed 'La Gran Sultana'(The Great Sultan) in
reference to its Moorish namesake in Spain, is
Nicaragua's oldest Spanish city. Founded in 1524 by
conquistadors, it rumps up against the imposing Volcán
Mombacho on the the northwest shore of Lake Nicaragua.
With its access to the Caribbean Sea via the lake and the
Río San Juan, Granada has always been a main trade
centre. Today the town is relatively quiet and a major
literary centre, and retains its colonial character. It's
a wonderful walking city, with the cathedral and Parque
Colón near the plaza.
León
León is traditionally the most liberal of Nicaragua's
cities and remains the radical and intellectual centre of
the country. Monuments to the revolution, including bold
Sandinista murals, are dotted all over town, and many
buildings are riddled with bullet holes.
Though scarred by earthquakes and war, the city is
resplendent with many fine colonial churches and official
buildings. Its streets are lined with old Spanish-style
houses that have white adobe walls, red-tiled roofs,
thick wooden doors and cool garden patios.
The Caribbean Coast
(Nicaragua)
Unlike the rest of Nicaragua, the Caribbean coast was
never colonised: it remained a British protectorate until
the late 1800s. The only part of the rainforest-covered
coast usually visited by travellers is Bluefields, but
some visitors also head out to the Corn Islands (Islas
del Maíz).
The journey from Managua to Bluefields involves a
five-hour boat trip down the Río Escondido. Bluefields'
mix of ethnic groups makes it an interesting place, and
the people here definitely like to have a good time;
there are several reggae clubs and plenty of dancing on
the weekends.
Off the Beaten Track
Archipiélago de Solentiname
The Archipiélago de Solentiname is the site of a
communal society established for artists by the poet
Ernesto Cardenal, known for a school of colorful
primitivist painting. They are a great place for hiking,
fishing and taking it easy. Boats to the Solentiname
islands depart from San Carlos.
Corn Islands
The Corn Islands (Islas de Maíz), off the coast east of
Bluefields, are made up of two small islands. Like other
islands near the Caribbean coast, they were once a haven
for buccaneers. A submerged Spanish Galleon wreck that
awaits exploration will help you cast your imagination
back to those days.
Nowadays, life moves at an unhurried pace on the islands.
With clear turquoise water, white sandy beaches,
excellent fishing, and fantastic coral reefs for
snorkelling and diving, the islands (especially the
larger one) are unsuprisingly popular holiday spots.
Las Isletas
Las Isletas is a group of 356 small islands just offshore
from Granada in Lago de Nicaragua. Local life revolves
around fishing and growing tropical fruits, and there is
a remarkable variety of birds. One island is San Pablo,
which has a small 18th-century Spanish fortress built to
fend off pirates.
Isla Zapatera is a protected national park and although
it's one most important archaeological areas, its
pre-Columbian statues have been moved elsewhere. You can
visit other ancient tombs and structures here, and there
are more tombs and some rock carvings on Isla El Muerto
(Island of the Dead).
Activities
The Selva Negra (Black Forest) near Matagalpa, the
mountains in the north and the islands in Lago de
Nicaragua offer great hiking. Among the many spectacular
volcanoes of interest for climbers are Volcán Masaya and
the two volcanoes on Isla de Ometepe, Madera and
Concepción. Lago de Nicaragua offers fantastic
opportunities for fishing, and surfing is popular at
Poneloya beach, near León, and at Playa Popoyo, near
Rivas.
Nicaragua History
The earliest traces of human habitation in Nicaragua are
the 10,000-year-old footprints of the Acahualinca -
prints preserved under layers of volcanic ash of people
and animals running toward Lago de Managua. Around the
10th century AD, indigenous people from Mexico migrated
to Nicaragua's Pacific lowlands, and Aztec culture was
adopted by many indigenous groups when Aztecs moved south
during the 15th century to establish a trading colony.
The first contact with Europeans came in 1502, when
Columbus sailed down the Caribbean coast. In 1522, a
Spanish exploratory mission reached the southern shores
of Lago de Nicaragua. A few years later the Spanish
colonised the region and founded the cities of Granada
and León, subduing local tribes. The inhabitants of the
heavily populated area around Managua put up a fierce
resistance to the Spanish invaders, and their city was
destroyed.
Nicaragua gained independence from Spain in 1821, along
with the rest of Central America. It was part of Mexico
for a brief time, then part of the Central American
Federation, and finally achieved complete independence in
1838. Soon after, Britain and the USA both became
extremely interested in Nicaragua and the strategically
important Río San Juan navigable passage from Lago de
Nicaragua to the Caribbean. In 1848, the British seized
the port at the mouth of the Río San Juan on the
Caribbean coast and renamed it Greytown. This became a
major transit point for hordes of hopefuls looking for
the quickest route to Californian gold.
In 1855, the liberals of León invited William Walker, a
military adventurer intent on taking over Latin American
territory, to help seize power from the conservatives
based in Granada. Walker and his band of mercenaries took
Granada easily and he proclaimed himself president of
Nicaragua. He was soon booted out of the country (one of
his first moves was to institutionalise slavery) but
showed almost absurd tenacity as he repeatedly tried to
invade; his efforts set a precedent for continued US
interference in Nicaragua's affairs.
In 1934, General Somoza, head of the US-trained National
Guard, engineered the assassination of liberal opposition
rebel Augusto C Sandino and, after fraudulent elections,
became president in 1937. Somoza ruled Nicaragua as a
dictator for the next 20 years, amassing huge personal
wealth and landholdings the size of El Salvador. Although
General Somoza was shot dead in 1956, his sons upheld the
reign of the Somoza dynasty until 1979. Widespread
opposition to the regime had been present for a long
time, but it was the devasting earthquake of 1972, and
more specifically the way that international aid poured
into the pockets of the Somozas while thousands of people
suffered and died, that caused opposition to spread among
all classes of Nicaraguans. Two groups were set up to
counter the regime: the FSLN (Frente Sandinista de
Liberacíon Nacional, also known as the Sandinistas) and
the UDEL, led by Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, publisher of La
Prensa, the newspaper critical of the dictatorship.
When Chamorro was assassinated in 1978 the people erupted
in violence and declared a general strike. The revolt
spread and former moderates joined with the FSLN to
overthrow the Somoza regime. The Sandinistas marched
victoriously into Managua on July 19, 1979. They
inherited a poverty-stricken country with high rates of
homelessness and illiteracy and insufficient health care.
The new government nationalised the lands of the Somozas
and established farming cooperatives. They waged a
massive education campaign that reduced illiteracy from
50% to 13%, and introduced an immunisation program that
eliminated polio and reduced infant mortality to a third
of the rate it had been before the revolution.
It wasn't long before the country encountered serious
problems from its 'good neighbour' to the north. The US
government, which had supported the Somozas until the
end, was alarmed that the Nicaraguans were setting a
dangerous example to the region. A successful popular
revolution was not what the US government wanted. Three
months after Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, the USA
announced that it was suspending aid to Nicaragua and
allocating 10000000.00 for the organisation of
counter-revolutionary groups known as Contras. The
Sandinistas responded by using much of the nation's
resources to defend themselves against the US-funded
insurgency.
In 1984, elections were held in which Daniel Ortega, the
leader of the Sandinistas, won 63% of the vote, but the
USA continued its attacks on Nicaragua. In 1985, the USA
imposed a trade embargo that lasted five years and
strangled Nicaragua's economy. By this time it was widely
known that the USA was funding the Contras, often
covertly through the CIA, and Congress passed a number of
bills that called for an end to the funding. US support
for the Contras continued secretly until the Iran Contra
Affair revealed that the CIA had illegally sold weapons
to Iran at inflated prices, and used the profits to fund
the Contras.
In 1990, Nicaraguans went to the polls and elected
Violeta Chamorro, leader of the opposition UNO and widow
of the martyred journalist Pedro Chamorro. Chamorro's
failure to revive the economy, and her increasing
reliance on Sandinista support, led to US threats to
withhold aid, but the civil war was over, democracy
installed and economic reform underway. Daniel Ortega ran
for president in October 1996 as a centrist, but he was
defeated by the anticommunist Liberal Alliance candidate
Arnoldo Alemán, who was sworn in January 10, 1997.
In November of 1998, Hurricane Mitch hit the Atlantic
coast of Central America, washing out roads and
destroying buildings and bridges throughout the region.
In Nicaragua, heavy rains following in the wake of the
storm set off a mudslide at Volcán Casita that buried
several villages. Over 10,000 people died as a result of
the hurricane, one of the worst this century. The tragedy
prompted several nations to cancel Nicaragua's debt in
late 1999.
The 2000 mayoral elections saw the Sandinistas do well,
but Liberal Party candidate Enrique Bolaños won the
presidential election in 2001, beating his Sandinista
opponent, former president Ortega. Not giving up on
Ortega yet, the Sandinistas renamed him as the party's
leader in March 2002.
Bolaños took office pledging to clean up the country's
corrupt government, a policy which many viewed as being
at odds with his party. Bolaños took an aggressive
stance and in spite of rifts he created, convinced the
assembly to strip former President Alemán of his
diplomatic immunity. Alemán was subsequently charged
with money-laundering and embezzlement, and was sentenced
to 20 years in jail in 2003. When the World Bank wrote
off four-fifths of the country's debt in January 2004 the
president declared it was the best news for Nicaragua in
a quarter-century; six months later Russia cancelled
debts stretching back to the Soviet era.
Culture
Earthquakes and war have obliterated much tangible
evidence of Nicaragua's cultural heritage, especially its
colonial architecture - although León retains many fine
old buildings. Poetry is one of Nicaragua's most beloved
arts, and no other Central American country can match its
literary output. Rubén Darío (1867-1916) is known as
the 'Prince of Spanish-American literature,' and recent
work by Nicaraguan poets, fiction writers and essayists
can be found in most bookshops. Bluefields, the largely
English-speaking town on the Caribbean coast, is a center
for reggae music. The Archipiélago de Solentiname in
Lago de Nicaragua is famous as a haven for artists, poets
and craftspeople. Sandinista street art in the form of
modernist murals is especially prominent in the
university town of León.
Spanish is the language of Nicaragua, but English and a
number of indigenous languages are spoken on the
Caribbean coast. The main religion is Catholicism,
although there are a number of Protestant sects such as
the Pentecostals and the Baptists. The Moravian church,
introduced by British missionaries, is important on the
Caribbean coast.
A typical meal in Nicaragua consists of eggs or meat,
beans and rice, salad (cabbage and tomatoes), tortillas
and fruit in season. Most common of all Nicaraguan foods
is gallo pinto, a blend of rice and beans, with cooking
water from the beans added to color the rice. Other
traditional dishes include bajo, a mix of beef, green and
ripe plantains and yucca (cassava), and vigorón, yucca
served with fried pork skins and coleslaw. Street vendors
sell interesting drinks such as tiste, made from cacao
and corn, and posol con leche, a corn-and-milk drink.
Nicaragua boasts the best beer and rum in Central
America.
Environment
Nicaragua is the largest country in Central America. It's
bordered to the north by Honduras, to the south by Costa
Rica, to the east by the Caribbean Sea and to the west by
the Pacific Ocean. The country has three distinct
geographic regions: the Pacific lowlands, the
north-central mountains and the Caribbean lowlands, also
called the Mosquito Coast or Mosquitía. The fertile
Pacific lowlands are interrupted by about 40 volcanoes,
and dominated by Lago de Nicaragua, which is the largest
lake in Central America. The Mosquito Coast is a sparsely
populated rainforest area and the outlet for many of the
large rivers originating in the central mountains. To
date, 17% of the country has been given national-park
status.
Lago de Nicaragua supports unusual fish, including the
world's only freshwater sharks, as well as a huge variety
of bird life. The cloud- and rainforests in the northwest
contain abundant wildlife including ocelots, warthogs,
pumas, jaguars, sloths and spider monkeys. Avian life in
the forests is particularly rich: the cinnamon
hummingbird, ruddy woodpecker, stripe-breasted wren,
elegant trogon, shining hawk and even the quetzal, the
holy bird of the Maya, can all be seen. The jungles on
the Caribbean coast contain trees that grow up to almost
200ft (60m) high and are home to boas, anacondas,
jaguars, deer and howler monkeys.
Nicaragua was devastated by Hurricane Mitch in November
1998, when more than a year's worth of rain fell in in
just seven days. A series of violent earthquakes and
volcanic eruptions in the fall of 1999 didn't help the
situation much.
Further Reading
Fire from the Mountain: The Making of a
Sandinista by Omar Cabezas is a classic account of the
Sandinista guerrilla experience.
Nicaragua: Revolution in the Family by Shirley Christian
is a historical narrative of the 1979 revolution by the
leading US journalist on the ground at the time.
The Jaguar Smiles: A Nicaraguan Journey by Salman Rushdie
is a short travelogue assessing the Nicaraguan
revolution. The book is limited by the briefness of
Rushdie's visit.
Death, Dreams and Dancing in Nicaragua by Australian
journalist Penny O'Donnell is an entertaining account of
the establishing of public radio stations
Sandinista-style during the revolution.
So Far From God by Patrick Marnham is an unflinching and
lucid appraisal of Central America, its Spanish legacy,
its current problems and its troubled relationship with
the USA.
PJ O'Rourke takes a rather more light-hearted approach in
Holidays in Hell.
Poets of Nicaragua, edited by Stephen White, is a useful
bilingual anthology.
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US Wars
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