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http://aztlannet-news-blog.blogspot.com/2007/01/jueves-1-11-2006-nicaragua-news-report.html
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http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/12/america/LA-GEN-Nicaragua-Ortegas-Return.php
Published: January 11, 2007
Nicaragua's Ortega spends first day in office accepting aid package from Venezuela
The Associated Press
MANAGUA, Nicaragua: Nicaraguan revolutionary Daniel Ortega's first day as president was spent signing a socialist trade pact with allies Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba, and planning a meeting with Iran's hard-line president, actions sure to irritate the U.S. government.
Before taking office, Ortega assured Washington that he would maintain ties and remain part of the regional Central American Free Trade Agreement. But none of those promises have been evident his first day in office Thursday, during which he agreed to join Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, or ALBA, designed to serve as a counterweight to a U.S. proposed, hemisphere-wide trade deal.
"This act is a symbol of Latin America's desire to be independent," Ortega said.
On Sunday, Ortega was to host a daylong visit by a member of what U.S. President George W. Bush has called "the axis of evil:" Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has refused U.S. calls to dismantle the country's nuclear program.
Appearing Thursday with Chavez, Bolivian leader Evo Morales and Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, one of the Cuban revolution's oldest surviving leaders, Ortega said he would continue to work with organizations like the International Monetary Fund, but only "so that they don't keep sacrificing the Nicaraguan people."
"Think of what Nicaragua would be like today if the North American imperialists had allowed Daniel to continue his revolution!" he said.
He promised a slew of aid and investment, including 100,000 barrels of oil under preferential terms and the construction of an oil refinery and factories for Venezuelan products. Later, Ortega and Chavez signed agreements giving Nicaragua US$20 million (€15.4 million) in loans with little or no interest for the country's rural poor as well as help improving health care and education.
Chavez announced Venezuela will forgive US$30 million (€23 million) in debt owed by Nicaragua and donate US$10 million (€7.7 million) for Nicaraguan social projects.
Playing to the crowd, Chavez also donated tractors to several farmers who were in the crowd. Chavez announced the aid next to a metal electrical plant, donated by Venezuela shortly after Ortega's Nov. 5 victory.
"As soon as they said Daniel won, it was on a boat," Chavez said of the plant.
That's in addition to previous pledges for low-interest loans to Nicaragua's poor and electricity plants for the energy-starved, Central American nation. He was also to receive an honorary doctorate from a Nicaraguan university.
Also Thursday, Ortega signed a memorandum promising to maintain ties with Taiwan, dispelling rumors that he might cut ties with the island and seek stronger relations with China.
Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949, but Beijing still claims sovereignty over the island.
Nicaragua' new foreign minister, Samuel Santos, said the move was aimed at "assuring the continued investment, commerce and financing" from Taiwan.
Private investors have remained optimistic, and there are no signs they are pulling money out the country, as they did when Ortega began seizing private property and businesses in the 1980s.
Ortega led Nicaragua throughout the 1980s after his Sandinista rebel movement pushed out dictator Anastasio Somoza. Following his 1990 loss, he ran for president three consecutive times, losing twice before finally claiming victory in November.
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http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={F40D05E8-C246-4DE9-9077-8E1CB6BA9E64}&language=EN
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Nicaragua Ortega for Humble Start
Managua, Jan 11 (Prensa Latina) Nicaraguan President, Sandinista Daniel Ortega starts on Thursday his five-year mandate from a new presidential office, although he will be in permanent contact with the people.
"We are going to be where the people are, in neighborhoods and the countryside," Ortega said on Wednesday night in front of tens of thousands followers gathered at the capital's Plaza de la Fe, to celebrate his return to power.
Rosario Murillo, spokeswoman of the Sandinista National Liberation Front and since Wednesday Nicaragua's First Lady, stated that Ortega will soon leave the Presidential Palace and set up offices at the more modest Olof Palme Conference Center.
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http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7BAA57F7C3-ADF0-4DE9-8278-9ABDA5CF3918%7D)&language=EN
January 11, 2007
Nicaragua Joins Bolivarian Alternative
Managua, Jan 11 (Prensa Latina) Nicaragua is due to join Thursday to the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA), an integration project boosted by Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia, and based on cooperation, solidarity and respect of sovereignty.
The news was announced on Wednesday by Daniel Ortega in his first speech to Nicaraguans, immediately after being sworn in as president.
"We are going to join ALBA, that only unity of the peoples that can take all of Latin America out of poverty," said the country s new statesman in front of tens of thousands people who celebrated the Wednesday night return of Sandinism to power.
Nicaragua s entrance to that project opposed in letter and essence to the US-designed Free Trade Agreements, will take place in Managua today in the presence of Venezuela s President Hugo Chavez and Bolivia s Evo Morales.
Attending by Cuba is Council of State Vice President Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, who represented the island in Ortega s inauguration.
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http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2007/01/11/2003344252
Thursday, Jan 11, 2007, Page 1
Ortega affirms Taiwan-Nicaragua ties
By Ko Shu-ling STAFF REPORTER, IN MANAGUA
ALLIES: The president visited Nicaragua for the inauguration of Daniel Ortega, who said that his country would stick with Taiwan, while developing exchanges with China
President Chen Shui-bian, right, shakes hands with Nicaraguan president-elect Daniel Ortega in Managua on Tuesday.
PHOTO: CNA
Nicaraguan president-elect Daniel Ortega on Tuesday promised to continue diplomatic relations with Taiwan, amid speculation that the Central American ally might switch allegiance to China.
"After the change of government [late yesterday], I hope to continue all kinds of relationships with the people and government of Taiwan," Ortega said.
"I'd like to reiterate my warm welcome to all the officials and businesspeople of the Republic of China, Taiwan, at a time when we have committed ourselves to fighting poverty," he said.
Ortega made the remarks on Tuesday evening while meeting with President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Taiwan's delegation at the headquarters of Ortega's party, the Sandinista National Liberation Front.
Chen arrived in the Nicaraguan capital on Tuesday afternoon. He was to attend the inauguration of Ortega late yesterday and was greeted with military honors at the airport.
Ortega had said before the election that if he won, he would switch recognition from Taiwan to China to meet the needs of the Nicaraguan business sector.
Nicaragua recognized Beijing in 1985 after Ortega's first election. However, former president Violeta Chamorro broke with Beijing and re-established ties with Taiwan after defeating Ortega in 1990.
Chen met Ortega and Nicaraguan vice president-elect Jaime Morales Carazo in the evening before having dinner with Taiwanese expatriates, embassy personnel and agricultural mission members.
Ortega yesterday told Chen that his new government would continue diplomatic relations with Taiwan, while developing exchanges with China. While Oretega has invited China to establish trade offices in his country, Beijing has not yet responded.
When asked by the Taipei Times during Tuesday night's press conference whether Taiwan could accept Nicaragua's recognition of Taiwan and China at the same time, Chen said that his government has never opposed such a situation.
However, such a scenario would not be an issue, Chen said, because what the Nicaraguan government wants is to maintain economic ties with Beijing rather than diplomatic.
"The crux of the problem lies in China's unwillingness, rather than Taiwan's," he said.
Regarding Taiwan-US relations, Chen said that he realized the US government needs China's help in tackling problems in Iran, Iraq and North Korea, but he did not want to see cooperation between Washington and Beijing sacrifice Taiwan's interests.
Chen said that his administration values the hard-earned mutual trust and long-term friendship between the two countries.
The president also thanked the US government for giving him a "comfortable, convenient, safe and dignified" transit stay in San Francisco, emphasizing that such a foundation of mutual trust should not be easily impaired.
Chen said that he would keep the promises he made to the US government and US President George W. Bush.
Meanwhile, Chen said that he was following the recommendation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to personally attend the inauguration with the aim of consolidating ties with Nicaragua.
During his meeting with Morales, Chen said that the vice president told him that they plan to relocate the presidential office and turn the old one into the "Home of Taiwan" dedicated to the care of the underprivileged.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070111/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/nicaragua_ortega_s_return_9
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Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Nicaraguan revolutionary back in power
By TRACI CARL, Associated Press Writer
MANAGUA, Nicaragua - Former revolutionary Daniel Ortega was sworn in as Nicaragua's president Wednesday, completing his two-decade fight to return to power with promises to build a leftist coalition with some of Washington's biggest foes.
Ortega took the oath of office at a plaza he constructed as president in the 1980s — the same place where he conceded electoral defeat to Violeta Chamorro in 1990 after a turbulent decade in power marked by food rationing and civil war.
Ortega led Nicaragua throughout the 1980s after his Sandinista rebel movement pushed out dictator Anastasio Somoza. Following his 1990 loss, he ran for president three consecutive times, losing twice before finally triumphing in November.
Wearing his signature white button-down shirt — his military fatigues abandoned — the balding 61-year-old Ortega isn't the same fiery revolutionary who allied with the Soviet Union and fought off the U.S.-backed Contra rebel insurgency. He has promised moderate economic and social policies and continued ties with the U.S.
But none of those pledges made it into his inaugural speech late Wednesday, a fiery, leftist rally that included Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian leader Evo Morales.
"With unity there is strength," Ortega said. "With unity comes victory!"
President Bush and Chavez are fighting for influence in this former Cold War battleground, both promising aid while pushing vastly different prescriptions for one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere.
Chavez, who arrived just hours after he was sworn in for another six-year term in his own country, has promised the impoverished nation 32 desperately needed electricity plants, low-interest loans to the poor from a branch of his state development bank and help in improving the Nicaragua's health and education systems.
The Venezuelan leader told thousands of Ortega's supporters that his "heart was overflowing with joy" to see Nicaragua in the hands of the Sandinista leader. He then gave Ortega a golden replica of South American independence hero Simon Bolivar's sword, and called for his allies to "unite our swords to bring justice and freedom to our people."
Morales, for his part, welcomed Ortega to the growing club of Latin leftists.
"We have three, four five commanders who will liberate Latin America," Morales said.
All three called for the quick recovery of Cuba's ailing Fidel Castro and pledged to form a coalition of leftist leaders who would fight to nationalize natural resources.
Castro's health prevented him from attending, but Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, one of the Cuban revolution's oldest surviving leaders, said the communist leader sent his "utmost support."
The U.S. has reluctantly welcomed Ortega's promises to respect private property and continue free trade agreements.
Late Tuesday, Ortega chatted with Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, who was heading the U.S. inaugural delegation. Before entering a private, 30-minute meeting, the two exchanged pleasantries about the weather and expressed their desire to maintain strong ties.
"I want to make very clear that our desire it to work with you," Leavitt told Ortega.
Ortega said he hoped the visit was the "first of several" and he described a phone call he had with Bush on Monday as a "very pleasant and positive conversation."
The U.S. government so despised Ortega during the 1980s that aides to President Reagan secretly sold arms to Iran's radical Islamic government to finance clandestine aid for the Contra rebels trying to overthrow Ortega.
Bush's father, who followed Reagan as president, sneeringly described Ortega as "this little man" and as an "unwanted animal at a garden party" when both attended a Central American summit in 1989 — a year before Ortega was voted out of office.
Under Ortega's first rule, Nicaragua descended into economic chaos under radical economic policies that included property seizures.
The country has progressed since those days. Thousands of American retirees call Nicaragua home, and the country is poised to benefit from the newly implemented Central American Free Trade Agreement. Ortega has promised to respect that pact, along with private businesses.
Business leaders are optimistic he will keep his word. There are few signs of investor flight.
Jay Walsh, a 53-year-old Fort Lauderdale, Fla., resident who owns Snooky's bar in Managua with two other Americans, said Ortega has changed.
"I think he's mellowed as far as his anger toward the United States," he said. "But I don't think he's totally forgiven the U.S. government."
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http://www.chinapost.com.tw/news/archives/front/200719/99500.htm
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
President Chen leaves for Nicaragua
2007/1/9
The China Post staff
President Chen Shui-bian denied dollar diplomacy yesterday on leaving for Managua on a five-day whirlwind visit, with two stopovers in the United States.
Speaking before boarding a special plane at 7:30 p.m., President Chen said he does not believe Taiwan is conducting what is known as a "fool's diplomacy."
He will discuss aid to Nicaragua after he attends the inauguration of President Daniel Ortega, who has vowed to cut off diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
Ortega will be sworn in tomorrow.
Aid in gratis to Taipei's wavering diplomatic allies is called "a fool's diplomacy," because they will be lost as soon as Beijing ante up the stake. "Some people" call Taipei's effort to help other countries "a fool's diplomacy," President Chen said.
"Of course," the president went on, "the conduct of diplomacy ... may be reviewed, and there is room for improvement, but basically it is a difference of policy lines.
"If we all believe we should not sit idle to wait for our demise and believe we should do something to break through the Chinese (diplomatic) blockade, all of our people should have faith in the government and give whole-hearted support and encouragement to our diplomatic efforts so that Taiwan may not only stand up with strength but will also bravely go out."
Chen is accompanied by Democratic Progressive Party chairman Yu Shyi-kung, three county magistrates and a number of business executives. On his way to Managua, President Chen and his entourage will stop over at San Francisco. They will stay overnight and proceed to the Nicaraguan capital.
One transit layover on President Chen's way back to Taipei is Los Angeles on Thursday. He will not stay overnight and fly back to Taipei on Friday.
The five-day tour, dubbed Operation Chia Hsin or Happiness, displeased China.
In a Web site statement, China's foreign ministry spokesman protested against the American decision to let President Chen stop over in the two California cities. "We are firmly opposed to any official exchange between Taiwan authorities and the United States," said Liu Jianchao, spokesman for the foreign ministry in Beijing.
Liu described "the real goal" of President Chen for transiting in the United States "is to undertake activities aimed at splitting China and ruining Sino-U.S. relations."
Beijing's lashing out against Washington may be the reason why David Lee, Taipei's representative in Washington, did not want to tell the press the details of President Chen's one-day schedule in San Francisco.
Washington does not want President Chen to publicize his two stopovers in the United States. No press interviews are allowed. Nor are political activities.
To President Chen, however, his passage via the United States is itself a diplomatic triumph.
In May last year, Washington turned down Chen's request to transit in San Francisco and New York on his way to San Jose and back to Taipei to take part in the Costa Rican presidential inauguration ceremonies. Instead, the United States offered Alaska as a transit point.
The American refusal to accommodate Chen came two months after he made an end run to effectively terminate the National Unification Council, which he vowed twice in as many inaugural speeches not to abolish.
Chen turned the American offer down and made two long detours to and back from San Jose.
Asked to comment on Chen's overnight stay in San Francisco, David Lee refused to characterize it as an improvement in Taipei-Washington relations, however.
In Taipei, Larry Waler of the American Institute in Taiwan, said Chen's stay in the California city will be "private and unofficial," in keeping with U.S. State Department guidelines for stops by senior Taiwanese leaders in the United States.
Since he assumed office as president on May 20, 2000, Chen has made American transit stops in New York, Los Angeles and Houston, all with the permission of the American authorities.
Some of those visits are believed to have angered Washington, because President Chen used them to press forward with his independence-leaning agenda, contravening Washington's guidelines.
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http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/01/09/ap3312609.html
January 9, 2007 @8:19 AM ET
Bush Looks to Cooperate With Nicaragua
Associated Press
President Bush called Nicaraguan President-elect Daniel Ortega, a one-time leftist firebrand, and said the two countries should be able to cooperate in such areas as reconciliation, democracy, and job creation.
Ortega, who fought U.S.-backed rebels as Nicaraguan leader during the 1980s, took the call on Monday, two days ahead of his formal installation for his second tour as president.
Bush also called outgoing President Enrique Bolanos to thank him for his service. Bolanos has been friendly toward the United States.
The administration has welcomed the more moderate image Ortega has been projecting compared with the period two decades ago when, as president, his best friend was Fidel Castro and his favored garb was military fatigues.
Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said Bush "expressed his strong commitment to the well-being of the Nicaraguan people and our continued interest in a relationship with Nicaragua." He specifically mentioned the trade agreement that Central American nations have signed with the United States and the Millennium Challenge Account.
In 2005, a $175 million Millennium Challenge program for rural development was approved for Nicaragua. Millennium Challenge grants are designed to provide support for countries that have open markets, invest in their people and are governed well in other ways.
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https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/nu.html
The World Factbook: Nicaragua
Introduction Nicaragua
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 2001, saw the Sandinistas defeated, but voting in 2006 announced the return of former Sandinista President Daniel ORTEGA Saavedra. Nicaragua's infrastructure and economy - hard hit by the earlier civil war and by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 - are slowly being rebuilt.
Geography Nicaragua
Location: Central America, bordering both the Caribbean Sea and the North Pacific Ocean, between Costa Rica and Honduras
Geographic coordinates: 13 00 N, 85 00 W
Map references: Central America and the Caribbean
Area: total: 129,494 sq km
land: 120,254 sq km
water: 9,240 sq km
Area - comparative: slightly smaller than the state of New York
Land boundaries: total: 1,231 km
border countries: Costa Rica 309 km, Honduras 922 km
Coastline: 910 km
Maritime claims: territorial sea: 200 nm
continental shelf: natural prolongation
Climate: tropical in lowlands, cooler in highlands
Terrain: extensive Atlantic coastal plains rising to central interior mountains; narrow Pacific coastal plain interrupted by volcanoes
Elevation extremes: lowest point: Pacific Ocean 0 m
highest point: Mogoton 2,438 m
Natural resources: gold, silver, copper, tungsten, lead, zinc, timber, fish
Land use: arable land: 14.81%
permanent crops: 1.82%
other: 83.37% (2005)
Irrigated land: 610 sq km (2003)
Natural hazards: destructive earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides; extremely susceptible to hurricanes
Environment - current issues: deforestation; soil erosion; water pollution
Environment - international agreements: party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands
signed, but not ratified: Environmental Modification
Geography - note: largest country in Central America; contains the largest freshwater body in
Central America, Lago de Nicaragua
People Nicaragua
Population: 5,570,129 (July 2006 est.)
Age structure: 0-14 years: 36.4% (male 1,031,897/female 994,633)
15-64 years: 60.5% (male 1,677,633/female 1,691,353)
65 years and over: 3.1% (male 76,758/female 97,855) (2006 est.)
Median age: total: 20.9 years
male: 20.5 years
female: 21.4 years (2006 est.)
Population growth rate: 1.89% (2006 est.)
Birth rate: 24.51 births/1,000 population (2006 est.)
Death rate: 4.45 deaths/1,000 population (2006 est.)
Net migration rate: -1.17 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2006 est.)
Sex ratio: at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.04 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 0.99 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.78 male(s)/female
total population: 1 male(s)/female (2006 est.)
Infant mortality rate: total: 28.11 deaths/1,000 live births
male: 31.51 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 24.54 deaths/1,000 live births (2006 est.)
Life expectancy at birth: total population: 70.63 years
male: 68.55 years
female: 72.81 years (2006 est.)
Total fertility rate: 2.75 children born/woman (2006 est.)
HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate: 0.2% (2003 est.)
HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS: 6,400 (2003 est.)
HIV/AIDS - deaths: less than 500 (2003 est.)
Nationality: noun: Nicaraguan(s)
adjective: Nicaraguan
Ethnic groups: mestizo (mixed Amerindian and white) 69%, white 17%, black 9%, Amerindian 5%
Religions: Roman Catholic 72.9%, Evangelical 15.1%, Moravian 1.5%, Episcopal 0.1%, other 1.9%, none 8.5% (1995 census)
Languages: Spanish 97.5% (official), Miskito 1.7%, other 0.8% (1995 census)
note: English and indigenous languages on Atlantic coast
Literacy: definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 67.5%
male: 67.2%
female: 67.8% (2003 est.)
Government Nicaragua
Country name: conventional long form: Republic of Nicaragua
conventional short form: Nicaragua
local long form: Republica de Nicaragua
local short form: Nicaragua
Government type: republic
Capital: name: Managua
geographic coordinates: 12 09 N, 86 17 W
time difference: UTC-6 (1 hour behind Washington, DC during Standard Time)
Administrative divisions: 15 departments (departamentos, singular - departamento) and 2 autonomous regions* (regiones autonomistas, singular - region autonomista); Atlantico Norte*, Atlantico Sur*, Boaco, Carazo, Chinandega, Chontales, Esteli, Granada, Jinotega, Leon, Madriz, Managua, Masaya, Matagalpa, Nueva Segovia, Rio San Juan, Rivas
Independence: 15 September 1821 (from Spain)
National holiday: Independence Day, 15 September (1821)
Constitution: 9 January 1987; reforms in 1995 and 2000
Legal system: civil law system; Supreme Court may review administrative acts; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction
Suffrage: 16 years of age; universal
Executive branch: chief of state: President Enrique BOLANOS Geyer (since 10 January 2002); Vice President Alfredo GOMEZ Urcuyo (since 10 October 2005); note - the president is both chief of state and head of government; Alfredo GOMEZ Urcuyo was elected Vice President by the deputies of the National Assembly after Vice President Jose RIZO Castellon resigned on 27 September 2005
head of government: President Enrique BOLANOS Geyer (since 10 January 2002); Vice President Alfredo GOMEZ Urcuyo (since 10 October 2005)
cabinet: Council of Ministers appointed by the president
elections: president and vice president elected on the same ticket by popular vote for a five-year term (eligible for a second term); election last held 5 November 2006 (next to be held by November 2011)
election results: Daniel ORTEGA Saavedra (FSLN) elected president - 38.07%, Eduardo MONTEALEGRE (ALN) 29%, Jose RIZO (PLC) 26.21%, Edmundo JARQUIN (MRS) 6.44%; note - ORTEGA will take office 10 January 2007
Legislative branch: unicameral National Assembly or Asamblea Nacional (92 seats; members are elected by proportional representation and party lists to serve five-year terms; 1 seat for the previous president, 1 seat for the runner-up in previous presidential election)
elections: last held 5 November 2006 (next to be held by November 2011)
election results: percent of vote by party - NA; seats by party - FSLN 38, PLC 25, ALN 23 (22 plus one for presidential candidate Eduardo MONTEALEGRE, runner-up in the 2006 presidential election), MRS 5, APRE 1 (outgoing President Enrique BOLANOS)
Judicial branch: Supreme Court or Corte Suprema (16 judges elected for five-year terms by the National Assembly)
Political parties and leaders: Alliance for the Republic or APRE [Miguel LOPEZ Baldizon]; Central American Unionist Party or PUCA [Blanca ROJAS]; Christian Alternative Party or AC [Orlando TARDENCILLA Espinoza]; Conservative Party or PC [Mario Sebastian RAPPACCIOLI]; Independent Liberal Party or PLI [Anibal MARTINEZ Nunez, Pedro REYES Vallejos]; Independent Liberal Party for National Unity or PLIUN [Carlos GUERRA Gallardo]; Liberal Constitutional Party or PLC [Jorge CASTILLO Quant]; Liberal Salvation Movement or MSL [Eliseo NUNEZ Hernandez]; New Liberal Party or PALI [Adolfo GARCIA Esquivel]; Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance or ALN [Eduardo MONTEALEGRE]; Nicaraguan Party of the Christian Path or PCCN [Guillermo OSORNO Molina]; Nicaraguan Resistance Party or PRN [Salvador TALAVERA]; Sandinista National Liberation Front or FSLN [Daniel ORTEGA Saavedra]; Sandinista Renovation Movement or MRS [Dora Maria TELLEZ]; Unity Alliance or AU
Political pressure groups and leaders: National Workers Front or FNT is a Sandinista umbrella group of eight labor unions including - Farm Workers Association or ATC, Health Workers Federation or FETASALUD, Heroes and Martyrs Confederation of Professional Associations or CONAPRO, National Association of Educators of Nicaragua or ANDEN, National Union of Employees or UNE, National Union of Farmers and Ranchers or UNAG, Sandinista Workers Central or CST, and Union of Journalists of Nicaragua or UPN; Permanent Congress of Workers or CPT is an umbrella group of four non-Sandinista labor unions including - Autonomous Nicaraguan Workers Central or CTN-A, Confederation of Labor Unification or CUS, Independent General Confederation of Labor or CGT-I, and Labor Action and Unity Central or CAUS; Nicaraguan Workers' Central or CTN is an independent labor union; Superior Council of Private Enterprise or COSEP is a confederation of business groups
International organization participation: BCIE, CACM, FAO, G-77, IADB, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICFTU, ICRM, IDA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, IMO, Interpol, IOC, IOM, IPU, ISO (correspondent), ITU, LAES, LAIA (observer), MIGA, NAM, OAS, OPANAL, OPCW, PCA, RG, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNIDO, UPU, WCL, WCO, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTO
Diplomatic representation in the US: chief of mission: Ambassador Salvador STADTHAGEN
chancery: 1627 New Hampshire Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20009
telephone: [1] (202) 939-6570, [1] (202) 939-6573
FAX: [1] (202) 939-6545
consulate(s) general: Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco
Diplomatic representation from the US: chief of mission: Ambassador Paul A. TRIVELLI
embassy: Kilometer 4.5 Carretera Sur, Managua
mailing address: P.O. Box 327
telephone: [505] 266-6010
FAX: [505] 266-3861
Flag description: three equal horizontal bands of blue (top), white, and blue with the national coat of arms centered in the white band; the coat of arms features a triangle encircled by the words REPUBLICA DE NICARAGUA on the top and AMERICA CENTRAL on the bottom; similar to the flag of El Salvador, which features a round emblem encircled by the words REPUBLICA DE EL SALVADOR EN LA AMERICA CENTRAL centered in the white band; also similar to the flag of Honduras, which has five blue stars arranged in an X pattern centered in the white band
Economy Nicaragua
Economy - overview: Nicaragua, one of the Western Hemisphere's poorest countries, has low per capita income, widespread underemployment, and a heavy external debt burden. Distribution of income is one of the most unequal on the globe. While the country has progressed toward macroeconomic stability in the past few years, GDP annual growth has been far too low to meet the country's needs, forcing the country to rely on international economic assistance to meet fiscal and debt financing obligations. Nicaragua qualified in early 2004 for some $4.5 billion in foreign debt reduction under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative because of its earlier successful performances under its International Monetary Fund policy program and other efforts. In October 2005, Nicaragua ratified the US-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which will provide an opportunity for Nicaragua to attract investment, create jobs, and deepen economic development. High oil prices helped drive inflation to 9.6% in 2005, leading to a fall in real GDP growth to 4% from over 5% in 2004.
GDP (purchasing power parity): $16.1 billion (2005 est.)
GDP (official exchange rate): $5.03 billion (2005 est.)
GDP - real growth rate: 4% (2005 est.)
GDP - per capita (PPP): $2,900 (2005 est.)
GDP - composition by sector: agriculture: 16.5%
industry: 27.5%
services: 56% (2005 est.)
Labor force: 2.01 million (2005 est.)
Labor force - by occupation: agriculture: 30.5%
industry: 17.3%
services: 52.2% (2003 est.)
Unemployment rate: 5.6% plus underemployment of 46.5% (2005 est.)
Population below poverty line: 50% (2001 est.)
Household income or consumption by percentage share: lowest 10%: 1.2%
highest 10%: 45% (2001)
Distribution of family income - Gini index: 55.1 (2001)
Inflation rate (consumer prices): 9.6% (2005 est.)
Investment (gross fixed): 27% of GDP (2005 est.)
Budget: revenues: $1.134 billion
expenditures: $1.358 billion; including capital expenditures of $NA (2005 est.)
Public debt: 82.3% of GDP (2005 est.)
Agriculture - products: coffee, bananas, sugarcane, cotton, rice, corn, tobacco, sesame, soya, beans; beef, veal, pork, poultry, dairy products; shrimp, lobsters
Industries: food processing, chemicals, machinery and metal products, textiles, clothing, petroleum refining and distribution, beverages, footwear, wood
Industrial production growth rate: 2.4% (2005 est.)
Electricity - production: 2.887 billion kWh (2004)
Electricity - production by source: fossil fuel: 83.9%
hydro: 7.7%
nuclear: 0%
other: 8.4% (2001)
Electricity - consumption: 1.848 billion kWh (2004)
Electricity - exports: 21.8 million kWh (2004)
Electricity - imports: 23.3 million kWh (2004)
Oil - production: 14,300 bbl/day (2005 est.)
Oil - consumption: 25,200 bbl/day (2005 est.)
Oil - exports: 758.9 bbl/day (2004)
Oil - imports: 15,560 bbl/day (2005 est.)
Natural gas - production: 0 cu m (2003 est.)
Natural gas - consumption: 0 cu m (2003 est.)
Current account balance: $-835 million (2005 est.)
Exports: $1.55 billion f.o.b.; note - includes free trade zones (2005 est.)
Exports - commodities: coffee, beef, shrimp and lobster, tobacco, sugar, gold, peanuts
Exports - partners: US 60.7%, Mexico 8.6%, El Salvador 6.2% (2005)
Imports: $2.865 billion f.o.b. (2005 est.)
Imports - commodities: consumer goods, machinery and equipment, raw materials, petroleum products
Imports - partners: US 19.6%, Mexico 10.3%, Venezuela 9.5%, Costa Rica 8.5%, Guatemala 6.7%, El Salvador 4.5%, South Korea 4.1% (2005)
Reserves of foreign exchange and gold: $727.8 million (2005 est.)
Debt - external: $3.188 billion (2005 est.)
Economic aid - recipient: $419.5 million (2005 est.)
Currency (code): gold cordoba (NIO)
Currency code: NIO
Exchange rates: gold cordobas per US dollar - 16.733 (2005), 15.937 (2004), 15.105 (2003), 14.251 (2002), 13.372 (2001)
Fiscal year: calendar year
Communications Nicaragua
Telephones - main lines in use: 220,900 (2005)
Telephones - mobile cellular: 1.119 million (2005)
Telephone system: general assessment: inadequate system being upgraded by foreign investment
domestic: low-capacity microwave radio relay and wire system being expanded; connected to Central American Microwave System
international: country code - 505; satellite earth stations - 1 Intersputnik (Atlantic Ocean region) and 1 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean)
Radio broadcast stations: AM 63, FM 32, shortwave 1 (1998)
Radios: 1.24 million (1997)
Television broadcast stations: 3 (plus seven low-power repeaters) (1997)
Televisions: 320,000 (1997)
Internet country code: .ni
Internet hosts: 24,452 (2006)
Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 3 (2000)
Internet users: 140,000 (2005)
Transportation Nicaragua
Airports: 176 (2006)
Airports - with paved runways: total: 11
2,438 to 3,047 m: 3
1,524 to 2,437 m: 2
914 to 1,523 m: 3
under 914 m: 3 (2006)
Airports - with unpaved runways: total: 165
1,524 to 2,437 m: 1
914 to 1,523 m: 23
under 914 m: 141 (2006)
Pipelines: oil 54 km (2006)
Railways: total: 6 km
narrow gauge: 6 km 1.067-m gauge (2005)
Roadways: total: 19,036 km
paved: 2,299 km
unpaved: 16,737 km (2005)
Waterways: 2,220 km (including lakes Managua and Nicaragua) (2005)
Ports and terminals: Bluefields, Corinto, El Bluff
Military Nicaragua
Military branches: Army (includes Navy, Air Force)
Military service age and obligation: 17 years of age for voluntary military service (2001)
Manpower available for military service: males age 17-49: 1,309,970
females age 17-49: 1,315,186 (2005 est.)
Manpower fit for military service: males age 17-49: 1,051,425
females age 17-49: 1,129,649 (2005 est.)
Manpower reaching military service age annually: males age 18-49: 65,170
females age 17-49: 63,133 (2005 est.)
Military expenditures - dollar figure: $32.27 million (2005 est.)
Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 0.7% (2005 est.)
Transnational Issues Nicaragua
Disputes - international: Nicaragua filed a claim against Honduras in 1999 and against Colombia in 2001 at the ICJ over disputed maritime boundary involving 50,000 sq km in the Caribbean Sea, including the Archipelago de San Andres y Providencia and Quita Sueno Bank; the 1992 ICJ ruling for El Salvador and Honduras advised a tripartite resolution to establish a maritime boundary in the Gulf of Fonseca, which considers Honduran access to the Pacific; legal dispute over navigational rights of San Juan River on border with Costa Rica
Illicit drugs: transshipment point for cocaine destined for the US and transshipment point for arms-for-drugs dealing
This page was last updated on 19 December, 2006
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http://travel.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/travel/17Nicaragua.html?pagewanted=all
The Rediscovery of Nicaragua
Morgan Stetler for The New York Times
Photo> Momotombo is one of 19 active volcanoes in Nicaragua, most of which are protected as parkland, allowing visitors to get close to nature at its most potent.
By GREGORY DICUM
Published: December 17, 2006
Correction Appended
LOLL in one of the pools at Pelican Eyes, a new development above the town of San Juan del Sur, on Nicaragua’s Pacific Coast: a tranquil breeze blows up the hillside from the perfect bay below, the pool’s disappearing edge merges with sea and sky, and the only sound is the rhythmic tapping of the bricklayers who are building the place — a compound of whitewashed, tile-roofed houses amid lush greenery and looking out to perfect sunset views. At the bottom is an airy palm-thatched restaurant, where cheerful waiters serve strong drinks and the patrons sit in the warm night air and talk about real estate.
This is Nicaragua as the Next Costa Rica, the sort of hopeful real estate appellation signaling that gentrification may now begin in earnest. In the last few years, as Americans on the prowl for second homes, or just an investment, have found places like the Last Costa Rica already overrun by their own kind, a boom has started in the country just to its north.
Nicaragua is no stranger to American visitors with grandiose plans. That perfect bay at San Juan del Sur was the place Forty-Niners on their way to California from New England embarked upon the Pacific after a journey across Nicaragua. William Walker, a freelance American colonialist, made landfall here in 1855 to undertake a bloody, tragicomic campaign to introduce democracy, railroads and slavery.
Before facing a firing squad, Walker was briefly the president of Nicaragua, an episode that, perhaps even more than the quarter-century occupation by the United States Marines at the start of the 20th century, and even the Contra war of the 1980s, informs a Nicaraguan wariness of American enthusiasms.
So for now, this is still Nicaragua. If you descend the hill from Pelican Eyes and pass its guardhouse at the foot of the drive, the road is pocked and broken. Shanties cluster at its side. Yet toward the water, San Juan del Sur retains an attractive character. It’s a mellow seaside town where blond surfers stroll obliviously past a Sandinista rally, with loudspeakers blaring revolutionary songs.
This town of brightly painted wooden houses with red metal roofs is fronted by a wide, pretty beach. At the open-air restaurants there, you can relax with a setup that includes a bottle of fine, clean Flor de Caña rum, a bucket of ice, a few bottles of Coke and a dish of limes.
You can walk out for a dip in the warm, shallow water from time to time, then return to the restaurant and snack on salty fried cheese and sweet maduros (fried ripe bananas) as you watch kids play soccer on the beach. Boats bob just behind the soft, curling surf.
I visited in August, with the photographer Morgan Stetler and his fiancée, Anne-Lise Reusswig. In preparation for the elections that took place at the beginning of November, all around us were the workings of the democracy that has emerged from Nicaragua’s troubled past. This was the fourth consecutive free election in the 16 years of peace since the end of the Marxist regime of Daniel Ortega.
The Sandinistas won, making Mr. Ortega, their longtime leader, president once again. But he is president of a different Nicaragua, and there seems little chance that the Sandinista victory will lead back to the chaos of the past.
The news in August was of campaigns, scandal and, more pertinent to the visitor, the rolling blackouts born of high oil prices and botched energy privatization. “No hay luz” — “There is no light” — was an apologetic refrain we heard throughout the country, and we found that a generator had become the most important hotel amenity.
In Granada, we stayed at the newly remodeled Gran Francia. Besides being a well-lighted beacon in the darkened city, it was comfortable and well placed, on the corner of the central plaza, right next to the freshly painted mustard yellow cathedral.
In the plaza, the city’s annual weeklong festival for its patron saint, the Virgin of the Assumption, was in full swing. It featured a cacophony of school drum corps, church bells and booming fireworks at seemingly random times (like just before dawn).
The afternoon we arrived, an endearingly bad mariachi band played sad songs of lost loves as the singer hobbled about the plaza’s band shell with one leg drastically shorter than the other. Vendors sold wooden toys and fire-roasted cashews around the plaza, and a breeze brought the sweet smell of the countryside into the city.
Horse-drawn carriages, which serve as taxis — and not just for tourists — lined one side of the plaza, while families sat under spreading flame trees drinking pitaya, a cool and tangy juice of cactus fruit and lime with a stunning fuchsia color that glowed radiantly against the turquoise-painted tables. Old grandmothers sat on park benches watching beneficently as boys fiddled with their cellphones, too shy to flirt more directly with the clusters of laughing girls. It was hot, and everyone wished it would rain.
When the band was done and night had fallen, a town booster took the microphone in the elegant salmon-colored band shell to make a speech about Granada’s sunny future, saying “We’re now the 25th most visited city in Latin America!” When he was done, the power went out.
Granada was founded in 1524, and it was laid waste by William Walker as he abandoned it after losing his grip on power. When we took a tour of the city, our guide introduced nearly every building with a variation of “this church was burned by William Walker, the American filibuster.”
Everywhere, new cobblestones were going in, and new streetlights. Fresh paint in vivid yellow, pink and blue shone on magnificently restored post-Walker 19th-century churches. Visitors — European tour groups, Latin American families, Australian backpackers — wandered about the central part of the town, soaking up the evanescent atmosphere of more than a hundred years of solitude.
Like every city in Nicaragua, Granada is in a spectacular location. A richly forested volcano overlooks the city, which is perched at the edge of Lake Nicaragua. At the foot of the city, an enchanting archipelago of tiny, close-set islands beckons: Las Isletas are heaps of rock that were spewed out of the volcano and are now covered in big, leafy tropical vegetation. Some are private estates, opulent getaways for captains of Nicaraguan industry. Others are modest, primordial knobs concealing rustic cottages.
We took a boat through the islands, marveling at the beauty of such a setting — the white egrets wolfing down sardines, and the laconic fishermen in brightly painted rowboats on the calm water. Here and there “For Sale” signs in English hung low over the water from stout tree branches. They were beseeching, attached to improbable personal tropical paradises that could be had by any American sitting on a chunk of home equity.
But Lake Nicaragua seems too majestic a place for such thoughts. It’s a near-mythical tropical lake, one of the largest in the world, ringed by volcanoes and forest. Its waters are home to strange beasts — including freshwater sharks and sawfish, both sadly in decline — and moving legend: it is said to have been an Eden that was drowned after a Romeo and Juliet tragedy. It is shallow, and turbid from volcanic ash, but it is warm, and clean, lending a freshness to the air along its shores. Toward its southern end is an unexpected gem: the island of Ometepe.
Ometepe, composed of twin volcanoes rising from the lake, is like a magical little freshwater Hawaii. It is a true backwater — the rough road around the island was finished just 15 years ago, and the only access is by ferry — with the feel of a place where nothing ever happens, in the best sense.
As though by providence, the island was spared the centuries of violence that unfolded all around it. Ancient pre-Colombian petroglyphs and sculptures dot the volcanoes’ flanks. Above the plantings of plantains, sugar cane and sesame, the mountains’ upper reaches remain as they have always been.
With the aid of a guide, Leonel Barrios, who had grown up on its shoulder, we attempted to climb Volcán Maderas, the more southerly peak. The trail wound up past fields of rice and corn accessible only on foot or horseback. Then it passed pasture and entered the cloud forest, where howler monkeys roared at us from above.
But as we climbed, the clouds closed in. Halfway up, we were forced off the steep mountain trails by driving rain.
At least we had the beach to console us that afternoon, once the rain stopped. The fresh water was warm, with wind-blown waves rolling onto a long stretch of sand empty but for a few horses. I sat on a beach chair in front of the modest Hotel Villa Paraíso and listened to the clatter of coconut fronds. A boy ran up the beach to the hotel, carrying the day’s catch in a bucket.
Nicaraguan food has a hearty simplicity: a local fish, with tostones (medallions of fried plantains) and gallo pinto, or red beans and rice, washed down with a Toña, a classic tropical lager. Local specialties like vigorón (fried pork skin and yuca, a popular roadside meal around Granada) and nacatamales (corn tamales stuffed with meat and wrapped in banana leaves) are worth trying as well.
If Nicaraguan food tends toward sweetness, especially in its sauces, it is perhaps a symptom of its being a sugar-producing country. Regardless, in such a small country with so much agriculture and so many climate zones, virtually everything is fresh and holds up well to simple preparation.
After Ometepe, volcano fever seized us. Central America is one of the world’s most vigorous volcanic zones, and Nicaragua alone has 19 active volcanoes. And they are very accessible — there are one or two outside every city. Most are protected as parkland and make popular excursions, but even so, on many volcanoes you’ll find yourself alone with nature at its most potent.
Volcán Masaya, between Granada and Managua, is a huge heap of geology, with a road that lets visitors drive right to its lip. Past the parking area, right over a distressingly low wall, one stares directly into Hell. Sheer walls drop nearly 1,000 feet into a rumbling, smoldering hole a third of a mile across; fumes rise up in an ominously dirty-looking cloud. When wisps float by, the effect is like being tear-gassed.
Incredibly, a flock of specially adapted green parrots lives in the crater walls, safe from predators and mocking our coughs with their bright squeaks.
Masaya is at the center of a well-organized park that features guided tours through volcanic caves, a visitor center with a thorough explanation of the geology, history and ecology of the area, and trails that let you wander around the cone. Next to where our car was parked, a sign recommended we back in, in case we had to make a quick getaway, and warned, “In case of expulsions of rocks, protect yourself under the car.”
This kind of casual at-your-own-risk approach is refreshing if you’ve ever felt infantilized by the signs, guides and boardwalks at places like Yellowstone. Near the village of San Jacinto, outside León, we visited a field of bubbling mud and hissing fumaroles. There was a half-completed and abandoned overlook, built by an American volunteer during the 1980s, and a few concrete footings built by Soviet engineers who had planned a geothermal plant here. And there was a trail down into the shifting, boiling inferno.
The only safety measure — but a very effective one — was provided by a handful of local kids who shouted “No, No! Peligro!” (“Danger!”) whenever we were on the verge of a false step. From time to time, pigs fall in and are cooked alive.
Nearby is Cerro Negro, a big, black cinder cone that began erupting only in 1850, and quickly grew to more than 2,300 feet. I was eager to visit since, as a boy, I had been entranced by stories of this magical mountain.
The climb is a hot slog over crunchy lava on which absolutely nothing grows. The trail leads over the lip and directly into the crater, where smoking fumaroles emit noxious gas, coating the surrounding rocks with sulfur. The ground there is too hot to touch; all reminders of a habitable world are gone. There is nothing but heat and fumes and the sharpest, blackest rock: a visit to our planet before it was ours.
But from the high point of the rim above the crater, Nicaragua spreads out in all its glory. A line of big volcanoes extends north and south, with the green coastal plain below. León’s tight cluster marks the center of the area, and beyond it the Pacific shines in the west.
We visited Cerro Negro with Mario Munguia, a leader in a tourism cooperative based in León. The cooperative movement has been strong in Nicaragua since the Sandinista revolution and includes businesses from coffee farms to ice cream factories. A nationwide network of co-ops was founded in 2004 to help spread the benefits of the country’s boom.
As recently as five years ago, almost no facilities existed for foreign visitors, yet now development is brisk. Social development projects like the tourism co-ops and a scholarship and job training program associated with Pelican Eyes, as well as many others, tie the growing sector to society more broadly, as rarely happens elsewhere in Central America. As a visitor, there is the refreshing feeling that how it all turns out is, in part, up to you.
AFTER Cerro Negro, we stopped at Mario’s small farm by a sandy road in the woods. We met his son and his wife, who teaches at the village school. We saw his horses and the grapefruit trees he had planted and felt, for a moment, the slow pace of country life. Mario, of the generation that had lived — and fought — through the revolution, has an earnest and intense patriotism.
“I could have left here,” he told us, waving his hand across his home, “and gone to the United States, but this is my country.”
From there, we went on to nearby León. We stayed at the Hotel el Convento, a gorgeously converted 17th-century convent in the center of town. Surrounding a perfectly manicured courtyard and fountain, high wooden cloisters are decorated with enough religious artifacts to resemble a museum (including an entire golden altar in the expansive open-air lobby).
Not so recently destroyed, León seems older than Granada. And not so recently restored, it has a more lived-in feel. Historically the liberal city, in opposition to the conservative pole of Granada, León is today the Sandinista Party’s stronghold. The city was draped in Sandinista black and red in anticipation of the election season and there was an expectant bustle on the sidewalks, which teemed with students from the university in the center of town.
León bears the weight of its history with cultured if slightly shabby ease. It is a repository of folkloric tradition but is strongly influenced by classical European forms. The city cherishes its inheritance, on display in its newly restored theater and in its art galleries and poetry museums.
Indeed, poetry seems ideally suited to the Nicaraguan disposition. The daily papers include poems, along with cartoons and news. Nicaragua has produced poet-heroes like Rubén Darío, the 19th-century diplomat and journalist whose seminal influence on Spanish-language poetry has been likened to Whitman’s on English.
In León, Darío is buried to the side of the altar in the hulking Basílica de la Asunción, said to be the largest church in Central America. His words are carved in the marble, but like history itself, they live on all around Nicaragua.
One night on the beach at San Juan del Sur — the same beach where thousands of Americans once decamped for the gold rush, and where others are, maybe, rushing back again — I met John Oliver, a poet from Nicaragua’s eastern coast. He recited a poem of his, in his rich Caribbean English.
Then he switched to Spanish, and Darío’s heartbreaking “Melancolía.” His strong voice blended into the soft surf as he hit the last line: “¿No oyes caer las gotas de mi melancolía?” (“Can’t you hear the drops of my sadness falling?”)
VISITOR INFORMATION
GETTING THERE
American, Delta and Continental all fly to Managua, usually with one stop from New York. Recent online round-trip fares from New York for mid-January started around $680.
GETTING AROUND
Highways between the main cities in Nicaragua are in good shape: both Granada and León are each a little more than an hour from Managua, but in opposite directions. Navigating is not difficult, although it is reassuring to know at least some Spanish. When Nicaraguans do speak English, it is often excellent — many have spent time in the United States.
Many establishments will accept U.S. dollars rather than cordobas.
Budget Rent A Car (800-472-3325; www.budget.com) has four locations in Managua, including the airport. In January, the rate for an economy car will be $11 a day plus taxes and fees; a small four-wheel-drive S.U.V., $35 a day. When I rented, I was offered a free cellphone, too.
The other alternative is to hire a car with a driver. Any hotel or tour operator can arrange this for about $60 a day. Taxis within cities are cheap and easy to find — within central Managua, shared taxi rides can be had for as little as 30 cents.
WHERE TO STAY
In San Juan del Sur, consider Pelican Eyes (De la Parroquia 1½ cuadras al este; 866-350-0555 or 505-568-2110; www.piedrasyolas.com). In 2007, room rates will start at $120, double occupancy. A house that sleeps six, with an ocean view and terrace, will start at $225. All have air-conditioning, Wi-Fi, satellite TV and purified water. Prices are a good deal higher around Christmas, New Year’s and Easter.
The area is filled with other options, including developments in the nearby hills and at nearby beaches, and smaller, family-run hotels in town that are friendly and clean, if less spectacular. Some can be found at www.sanjuandelsur.org.ni.
La Gran Francia is next to the cathedral in Granada (Esquina Sureste del Parque Central; 505-552-6000; www.lagranfrancia.com). It is in a carefully restored colonial building, with high ceilings and imposing dark wood furniture on cool floors of old tile. Its restaurant, in a similarly restored building across a quiet street, serves slightly more sophisticated versions of classic Nicaraguan and Cuban dishes. Service is gracious and obliging. And there is a generator. The 21 air-conditioned rooms with private bath start at $100 double occupancy.
Villa Paraíso, at Playa Santo Domingo on the isthmus in the middle of Isla Ometepe (505-453-4675; vparaiso@ibw.com.ni), is a little compound of small but comfortable rooms and cabanas right above the beach that start under $20. It resembles the kind of travelers’ haunt you’d find on one of the Caribbean islands in Belize, and it fills up fast. The row of imitators next to it fails to reach quite the same standard.
Other than the quiet serenity in a beautiful building, little else at Hotel El Convento next to San Francisco Church in León (505-311-7053, www.hotelelconvento.com.ni) is reminiscent of the cloistered life. Rooms, starting at $95 including tax and breakfast, are spacious, the staff is attentive, and the restaurant is refined. Rooms can be a bit dark, a defense against the tropical sun before air-conditioning was added, but they are well appointed and restful.
GUIDES
In León, Las Pilas-El Hoyo Rural Tourism Cooperative can arrange volcano treks of varying lengths and levels of difficulty for $15 to $25 a day. Call the co-op at 505-6967-381 (Spanish only) or send an e-mail in English or Spanish to laspilaselhoyoleon@yahoo.com. English-speaking guides are available.
Richard Leonardi, an American (and author of the Footprint Nicaragua guidebook), is the general manager at Tours Nicaragua (Plaza Barcelona, Módulo 5, Reparto Serrano, Managua; 505-270-8417; www.toursnicaragua.com), which can arrange any kind of excursion in the country.
WHEN TO GO
The best time is December and January, when the rains have stopped but the country has not yet dried to hot dust. The seasons are less pronounced on the Caribbean coast.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
GREGORY DICUM is the author of “’Window Seat Europe,” about reading the landscape from 35,000 feet in the air, published by Chronicle Books.
Correction: December 24, 2006
An article on Dec. 17 about the emergence of tourism in Nicaragua provided an incorrect phone number for a guide in León who leads volcano treks. The number for the guide, Mario Munguia, who is a member of Las Pilas-El Hoyo Rural Tourism Cooperative, is 505-6967-381.
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