First a bit of background. I My first trip there began in the USVI from where I crewed aboard a 27foot sailboat through the canal and up the coast of Panama to Golfito, Costa Rica. The owner/captain, his brother, and I stayed there for a week or so enjoying a New year’s Eve with other sailors and travelers and venturing out a ways on short day trips. Costa Rica was beautiful and I had nothing but good experiences there. I then left the boat as planned and began working my way north through Central America. I soon found myself on the “gringo trail” which consisted of the common route where travelers going north questioned and visited with those going south and vice versa about places to stay, things to see, and the experiences they had in the various places. I hooked up with an experienced traveler from Sweden just as I was leaving Costa Rica on a bus for Nicaragua.

I arrived in Nicaragua with many preconceptions and some expectations but I also tried to see the country with a ‘beginner’s mind’ and be open to evidence that might alter my view. I had followed the political situation in that country since the mid-seventies and somewhat closely since the election of Reagan.  I was convinced that Reagan was stupidly wrong about Nicaragua and criminally wrong in his actions against that unfortunate country. By January of 1989 the majority of US Americans had come to agree though not nearly as vehemently as me. Congress also agreed as did virtually all of Europe. The World Court also agreed and had ruled against the US and in favor of Nicaragua. Nicaragua was over-run with Central Americans, Europeans, Canadians, and a relatively small number of US citizens who were mostly organized into “Brigades” of “Brigadistas” doing volunteer work in support of the country and its new Sandinista government. There was a bit of partying too done with a bit of revolutionary fervor and some of my favorite people I met at “Sara’s”, a beer bar in Managua occupied nightly by brigadistas from everywhere who drank all the beer every night and many of whom then went looking for the second best place to drink all their beer too, were the Cubans.

By 1989 the revolution which had thrown out Somoza was mostly consolidated but the new government was still under the oppression of sanctions by the US and attacks by Contras trained at the “School of the Americas” at Ft. Benning Georgia and still being funded secretly and illegally by the US which did so partly with funds derived from active participation in drug trafficking.

 If the horror stories told by our government to justify and create support for our attack on Nicaragua were anywhere close to true it would have been obvious to enough of the foreigners in that country who had free and unguided access to everything everywhere. I never heard of any exception except to the inside of some military bases. I took pictures of some great graffiti on the exterior wall of a base and some shots through the gate and was only politely asked to not take any more when I put my camera slightly through the bars of the gate to get some interior shots.  

Leaving Nicaragua I continued north. We went through Honduras by the most direct route to El Salvador but I had a year old guide book and was not aware that the rules had been changed and that I could not get into El Salvador without a visa which would not be issued at the border. This was a rule no doubt instituted at the request/demand of the US government. I temporarily split from the Swedish guy who could enter and went on a long circuitous route back through Honduras where I saw many signs of military dominance of its citizens. Numerous times my bus would be stopped and occasionally young men who obviously didn’t want to go were pulled off and led to large tents with sides rolled up because of the heat which revealed cots with many other men sitting. No signs at that distance of any activity, just sitting. I was never questioned or asked to even show my passport.  

I left Nicaragua with all my beliefs of US malfeasance confirmed and with a very strong feeling that the Nicaraguan people deserved our help rather than our boots on their neck.

 Jumping forward all these years I have finally returned and reloaded my impressions. The country is still poor but its infrastructure looks much better. It is said that you can drink the water virtually everywhere though I didn’t test that too strongly. I brushed my teeth with it and drank what I was offered with my meals a few times and suffered no ill affects but almost always drank bottled water or beer. My impressions are just that, impressions, as I only have ‘survival’ Spanish and certainly cannot carry on a meaningful conversation in that language and there is not much English among the people there except for the many tourists and expatriates and sometimes English at my level of Spanish among workers in the tourist industry.  The transportation system is amazing in that you can go anywhere by bus very cheaply. We rode buses all around Managua, for instance, for two and a half Cordobas at 28 Cordobas to the dollar. The buses, called by foreigners ‘chicken buses’ never pass a stop regardless how full and usually stop between stops if you wave soon enough. I think most would be surprised how packed a bus can get but my friend who worked in San Francisco and commuted daily on the BART to Haywood said it was the same there. Between cities was also amazingly cheap and within cities the cab fare was amazingly low. As always and everywhere people are advised to know the cab fare before getting in but I rarely followed that advice and the worst price I paid for that ’mistake’ was ten Cordobas above the common fare. The routine was to know the general direction of your destination and stand beside the road watching for cabs going that way. A cab which probably already had some passengers would stop if it had room so some trips were not direct but that was part of the fun. Almost every cab driver was genuinely friendly, like almost Nicaraguan in any encounter, and were patient with us gringos when we had trouble communicating our wishes. A couple times they drove to a roadside business where they knew a person who could translate. At the end of a trip I almost always waited for full change for the money I had given the driver even if it was only very slightly over the amount of the fare. In five weeks of getting around this way I [almost] never noticed any hesitancy to give me the full amount of change or any indication I was being sweated for a tip. Exceptions were extremely rare. I would then, with extremely rare exceptions, tip them. The usual fare within a city was 15 to twenty Cordobas each, fifty-five to ninety cents, mas o menos. Usually twenty to thirty for the two of us.

Accommodations, arranged mostly through Air BnB or Hostel World ranged from excellent to mediocre value for the money and my total amount spent for the trip, not counting a frequent flyer miles ticket, was about eleven hundred dollars for five weeks sharing the cost of rooms with private baths. It could have been a fair amount less and with long term room rates and preparing our own meals could have been much less.  

 Beyond my surface observations I will pass on what I was told by the host in Managua that I mentioned above. It turns out that he had studied political science in Europe and had at one time thought of entering politics. He said that the Sandinistas would easily win an election today and that would likely remain the case for the foreseeable future. From this point my statements are what I hope is a fair reflection of what he said.

The Sandinista government has done much to help the general population of the country and continue to do so but they are also, like I believe most governments to be, too inbred and fill too many government positions through patronage of friends, relatives, and powerful supporters rather than through recognition of qualifications and history of effective service. Danielle Ortega is most interested in playing on the international stage and leaves most of the power of internal governance to his wife. She is wasting money that is desperately needed elsewhere on things such as the ugly steel trees which are lit at night at great expense for very costly electricity. [The stupidity of much money spent on ugly 'art' was just one example by my host of what drove him nuts about Mrs. Ortega, mostly it was her having too much power from an unelected position even though that power was not being abused to forcefully crush dissent and was used in many helpful ways that benefited the common people]

 She owns the company that builds them. [I am not sure of any details of that statement, it was thrown out with a laugh and no details were pursued]  Another leftist political party to help keep the government more honest would be a good thing but cannot expect to have any chance until a generation that venerates “The Heroes and Martyrs” of the revolution has passed on. The poor class controls who are elected because elections are fair and honest and so right now parties on the right do not have a chance of gaining more than a little representation. A more rightist government won one election, power was handed over peacefully for the first time in Nicaraguan history, and the people got a taste of what austerity measures recommended by the IMF and the World Bank felt like to an already poor country and now the Sandinistas are firmly back in power through the ballot.  Now my host would like to see an alternative on the left but would still vote for the Sandinistas [I believe] rather than a right wing party.  

 My host was not surprised at what I told him about the article by Moynihan but thought most of the accusations and conclusions of Moynihan, especially those of war crimes by the revolution and the history of the Sandinistas, are absurd and pointed out that those charges of crimes did apply correctly to the Contras, [the ones trained by our government to attack local leaders and infrastructure so as to bring down the government chosen and fought for by its people].

 Some more random thoughts: Nicaragua is the second foreign country I have ever been in where I was not approached either to buy dope or to be offered the services of a prostitute. The other is India. A building in Managua was pointed out by our host as the former headquarters of a drug cartel which was crushed four or five years ago and is now a police station. He said there are no powerful drug gangs in the country.

 Almost every building, including residences, of any size is fortified with steel fences, bars on the windows and doors, and concertina wire around the walls and roof line. This includes those recently built or under construction.

 When we asked we were told that there could be some danger of getting mugged or harassed at night in some areas and so should take a taxi after dark. We ignored this advice in most of the places we stayed and only took a taxi as a precaution one evening when we were a long walk from our room in Grenada and the power went out leaving everything very dark. It came back on about the time we got to our room. Nobody we talked to anywhere had had a crime problem or heard first hand of one or at least it never came up among travelers we talked to.

 I will probably add more thoughts as they come to mind and will be happy to answer what questions I can when time allows.