After a night at sea we arrived this morning into the port of San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua which is about 120 Km southwest of the capital city, Managua. Nicaragua is known for its dramatic terrain of lakes, volcanoes and beaches, the vast Lake Nicaragua and the iconic stratovolcano Momotombo. To its south is Granada, noted for its Spanish colonial architecture and an archipelago of navigable islets rich in tropical bird life. The Economist in 2012 called Nicaragua a surprising safe haven in Central America despite being one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere. It is also the largest country in Central America bordered by Honduras in the north and Costa Rica to the south with a multi-ethnic population of 6 million including people of indigenous origin, Europeans, Africans, and a large Chinese population. Many of us from North America know little about Nicaragua except what we remember of the 13-year revolution. The conflict was a battle between the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, whose family had ruled the country since 1936, and Daniel Ortega, the son of a shoemaker who joined the left-wing Sandinista National Liberation Front then masterminded a peasant-led uprising which turned into a full-scale civil war. The Sandinistas took power in 1979 forcing President Somoza into exile and by 1985 US President Ronald Regan stepped up his suppoet for armed counter-revolutionary groups known as Contras. When I mentioned to friends I was going to Nicaragua, several said “watch out for the Contra rebels.” Unfortunately, tens of thousands of Nicaraguans died in the Contra war and today that’s what many of us think about when we think about Nicaragua, not its stunning surf beaches, nor it’s beautiful jungles and volcanoes. BTW, Daniel Ortega, now 74, is still the President and will step down in 2021.
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