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So... a bus, a bike-taxi thing and another bus later and we were in Nicaragua, a fascinating and lovely country with possibly the most interesting history of any country I've visited so far. A nation of proud, friendly people this place felt undeniably safer than many of its neighbours. This, despite me reading that, after Haiti, here is the poorest country in the western hemisphere.

Almost Accurate Nicaraguan History Lesson, Anyone?

Graham Perkins
2006-08-21 13:11:31

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So... a bus, a bike-taxi thing and another bus later and we were in Nicaragua, a fascinating and lovely country with possibly the most interesting history of any country I've visited so far. A nation of proud, friendly people this place felt undeniably safer than many of its neighbours. This, despite me reading that, after Haiti, here is the poorest country in the western hemisphere.

The two main cities founded when the Spaniards came a-rapin' and a-pillagin' were Grenada and León. A number of factors made Grenada a rich colonial city attracting the wealthy elite, who brought their conservative political outlooks and Spanish beliefs in the strength of the monarchy and Catholicism, so it wasn't long before Grenada became the base for the colony's Conservative party. Meanwhile León attracted intellectual types and radical clerics who quickly formed the colony's liberal party there, and the Spanish declared here to be the province's capital in the early 17th century.

As a result of such differing political ideologies, a vast gulf in prosperities and León's political supremacy a tempestuous rivalry existed between the two that often spilled over into full-blown civil war. Eventually the Spaniards had had enough and in 1857 founded
With our Guide at the Top of Volcan Maderas Full Image
By the crater lake at the top of the Volcano. It rained so hard up there.today's capital in between the two, Managua, which is shit. Really shit. Please don't go. Not even to change buses.

More recent Nicaraguan history has been dominated by corrupt administations, endless coups and the Sandinistas. (Are you paying attention?)

During the 1930s, the leader of the recently formed Nicaraguan National Guard, a Conservative, Anastasio Somoza Garcia, masterminded the assassination of prominent liberal rebel Augusto Sandino, overthrowing the Liberal president a couple of years later and declaring ...