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Background: The Pacific Coast of Nicaragua was settled as a Spanish colony from Panama in the early 16th century. Independence from Spain was declared in 1821 and the country became an independent republic in 1838. Britain occupied the Caribbean Coast in the first half of the 19th century, but gradually ceded control of the region in subsequent decades. Violent opposition to governmental manipulation and corruption spread to all classes by 1978 and resulted in a short-lived civil war that brought the Marxist Sandinista guerrillas to power in 1979. Nicaraguan aid to leftist rebels in El Salvador caused the US to sponsor anti-Sandinista contra guerrillas through much of the 1980s. Free elections in 1990, 1996, and again in 2001 saw the Sandinistas defeated. The country has slowly rebuilt its economy during the 1990s, but was hard hit by Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

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By bulary
November 6th 2006

Granada

Central America Caribbean » Nicaragua » Granada » Bearded Monkey

After 3 great weeks in Costa Rica, I finally moved onto to country #2: Nicaragua. The change was evident right at the border. We all filed off the bus to have our passports checked, and we were swarmed by about 20 little kids, all really skinny and hungry, asking for money for food. All those summers doing camps primed me to have a soft spot for kids, and this was really hard to take, I found it pretty difficult, and I still find this scene haunting me everyday since, again and again. The border took 2 hours, we got on the [View Full Entry]

By Jo Giles
November 6th 2006

Pochomil and our 5* treat

Central America Caribbean » Nicaragua » Granada » Bearded Monkey

Sunset at Pochomil
Beautiful!!

So, like I said, we eventually did leave Leon. At the last minute we decided to head to a place called Pochomil on the coast further towards Costa Rica to get some more sea and that cooler sea breeze. Leon made us want to escape the town scene. Pochomil is a small seaside village on the pacific coast. The beach was like nothing I’ve seen before, it was immense, stretching as far as the eye could see in either direction. The sea itself was lovely and warm and the whole beach was more or less deserted. We seemed to loose several [View Full Entry]

By Lucas Jacqui
November 1st 2006

Nicaragua - San Juan del Sur

Central America Caribbean » Nicaragua » San Juan Del Sur

SJDS - The (School) Bus

Travelblog by Jacqui: The great thing about travel in Nicaragua is that sometime during the 1980's somebody led a major smuggling ring focused on two major products: American 80's music and old American yellow schoolbuses. The entire country is oiled on Cyndi Lauper, Banarama, a few classic rock hits, and some Depeche Mode, delivered 24 hours a day via rusting diesel-spewing schoolbuses with seats built for 4-foot tall passengers. Our 1 1/2 hour 'bus' ride to Rivas costs us $1.25 each, and then we catch a connector to San Juan del Sur for 90 cents each. We arrive in San Juan [View Full Entry]

By Jo Giles
October 30th 2006

Lost in Leon

Central America Caribbean » Nicaragua » Leon

Mita on the climb up Volcan Negro
Her expression says it all!!!

So, on to Leon now! It took us 2 days to get there and to be honest we were a bit disappointed with our first place in Nicaragua after hearing so much good stuff about the country. To get there we had to do the trip in two journeys. The first got us to Chouluteca in Honduras where we stayed the night in another scummy yet extremely cheap room, but where we did manage to find a Pizza Hut!!! So we obviously chose to eat there…. The next day we got going early and got to Leon about 4 in the [View Full Entry]

By Mita
October 29th 2006

Numero Cinco!!

Central America Caribbean » Nicaragua » Leon

Happy New Year

¿Que Pasa Ustedes? If you haven´t seen any pictures yet go back to the last entries as I have put them on now!! I know if it was me I probably would only look at the pictures!! After leaving Pana, we only made it as far as Xela, or Quetzaltenango as is its official name, the second largest city in the country. Upon arrival, we immediately got a bus out of town that took us to a small Volcano town called Zunil. From there we got on the back of a pick up truck (very cheap in Centro America and always [View Full Entry]

By Elheernt
October 28th 2006

border bouncin-beach bummin

Central America Caribbean » Nicaragua » San Juan Del Sur

Tela, Honduras
gazing west

We left you a somewhere in San Pedro, Guatemala rght around the beginning of the "gringo trail". Normally we like trails, fun little adventures in the woods to get away people. Now it is one big adventure trying to avoid the trail. And so we find ourselves in Granada, Nicaragua...the jackpot of gringo-ville. We've broken some records, stories deserving to be told. One being our grandest collectivo ride. Transportion seems to bring us great entertainment. Coban, Gautemala (central highlands) to Lanquin, Gautemala (deep,central low-lands). 2 hours. 12 passenger Toyota mini-van, 23 people, 300 [View Full Entry]

By Lucas Jacqui
October 28th 2006

Nicaragua - Granada

Central America Caribbean » Nicaragua » Granada

Streets of Granada

The fast pace of 2006 quickly slowed when we arrived at the Oasis Hostel in Granada. The emphasis - in this small colonial city - being the hammock, and one achieves success each day based on the length of time spent horizontal. As you can imagine we were very very successful during our stay. The buildings in Granada - hmmm, how to describe... maybe some Sandanistas made friendly with Castro-friendly Cuban painters, had a few rum punches and decided to paint the town. Beautiful, bright vivid colors, all perfectly faded and worn better than canal-front property in similar-looking Venice. [View Full Entry]

By jobendeniseopreis
October 27th 2006

Surfing Nicaragua

Central America Caribbean » Nicaragua » Majagual

Sunset
1,2,3 jump!

Nicaragua, het land met de history van oorlogen en onderdrukking, waar de Sandinisten (volgelingen van Sandino = Nationale held) nu eindelijk hun stempel kunnen drukken op de vrijheid voor iedereen en waar de mensen langzaam maar zeker terug komen in het leven wat iedereen verdient! Het armste land van Centraal Amerika is ook gelijk het veiligste (volgens de betrouwbare informatie van ons reisboek, ahum) Iedere toerist is een eventuele bron van inkomsten, dus waarom zou je ze willen afzetten om ze zo weg te jagen? Dit was het gevoel wat wij de eerste dagen hebben gehad, iedereen is vriende [View Full Entry]

By Kev and Tash
October 22nd 2006

Twin Volcanos

Central America Caribbean » Nicaragua » Isla de Ometepe

Stuck in the mud
Tash trying to make her way down to the water for a swim!

Ometepe is a small island in a huge lake; Nicaragua’s biggest lake. It was formed when two neighbouring volcanoes erupted and joined themselves together. We had planned to go to stay and possibly work on a small organic farm on the smaller half of the island. The ferry docks on the larger island so we needed to catch a couple of buses to get across to where we wanted to be; we ended up spending the whole day waiting for the second bus playing cards and drinking beer with the locals and were just about to give up and get a [View Full Entry]

By Kev and Tash
October 19th 2006

A rough introduction to surfing

Central America Caribbean » Nicaragua » San Juan Del Sur

The friendly surf!!

San Juan del Sur is all about surfing, it is the town most frequently mentioned by fellow travellers in Nicaragua as the place to ride some waves, so we headed there to see if we could actually get upright on a board. Our mission in San Juan del Sur was to learn how to surf (or at least try!), so as soon as we had found a place to stay we were out on the streets hunting down the best surf deal. The beach in Suan Juan del Sur itself is more like a port full of fishing boats; the more [View Full Entry]

Links: Nicaragua Travel Blogs (all) | Nicaragua Travel Photos | Nicaragua Travel Forum | Nicaragua Facts | Map of Nicaragua

Travel Blog » Central America Caribbean » Nicaragua