The city center The Plaza de la Cultura marks the heart of the city. The area around this large square is a popular meeting point for peddlers, artisans, street musicians – in fact, just about anybody and everybody. The pride of the square is the neoclassical Teatro Nacional A [map] (www.teatronacional.go.cr), modeled after the Paris…
Author: zeusnice
Costa Rica – Central America Travel Guide
Fact Costa Ricans like to tell the story of how they received independence by mail. In fact, a courier aboard a mule arrived in the Central Valley of Costa Rica with the news on October 13, 1821, nearly a month after colonial officials in Guatemala City had declared independence for Costa Rica from the Spanish…
Southern Central America – Central America Travel Guide
SOUTHERN CENTRAL AMERICA Discover the most cosmopolitan cities and the best infrastructure in Central America, plus laid-back Caribbean vibes, upscale ecolodges, and superb surfing and sport-fishing. Having avoided much of the turmoil that has disrupted the progress of their northern neighbors, Costa Rica and Panama can seem like another part of the world at times….
Beisbol, Nicaraguan-Style – Nicaragua – Central America Travel Guide
BEISBOL, NICARAGUAN-STYLE In the 1880s an American businessman named Albert Addlesberg was living in Bluefields, at the time part of autonomous Mosquito territory, which had a strong British influence. Cricket was widely popular in Bluefields at the time and Addlesberg convinced two of the clubs to switch to baseball, giving them equipment he had shipped…
Fact – Continent Crossing – Nicaragua – Central America Travel Guide
North of the long, mostly undeveloped beaches of Playa Amarilla and Playa Colorado is Playa Santana, which is really five beaches. The 1,100-hecatre (2,700-acre) Rancho Santana (www.ranchosantana.com) is an intentionally rugged, private complex with multiple residential communities that share a beach club, organic farm, and surf center. A clubhouse and hotel complex on the northern…
Continent Crossing – Nicaragua – Central America Travel Guide
CONTINENT CROSSING During the California gold rush, thousands of would-be prospectors from the east coast of the United States travelled by ship to Nicaragua, where they were able to cross the country via the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua and then overland to the Pacific, where they could catch a ship up to the…
Sharks – Nicaragua – Central America Travel Guide
SHARKS The relatively shallow waters of Lake Nicaragua are the last place anyone would expect to find a shark. Their appearance surprised scientists who believed they were a unique freshwater species – until 1976, when the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Thomas B. Thorson tagged some of them, revealing that highly adaptable Caribbean bull sharks (Charcharinus leucus)…
Volcán Masaya National Park – Nicaragua – Central America Travel Guide
Volcán Masaya National Park Nicaragua’s first and largest national park, the 54 sq km (34 sq miles) Parque Nacional Volcán Masaya @ [map] is the home of five craters and two calderas. The extremely active Masaya caldera, known as the ‘Gates of Hell’ to the Spanish, exploded as recently as 2001, allowing a new vent…
Granada And The Masaya Region – Nicaragua – Central America Travel Guide
Granada and the Masaya Region The short distance between Managua and Lake Nicaragua is one of the most visited in Nicaragua. For many travelers, the cobblestone streets and colonial townhouses-turned-boutique hotels in Granada serve as a base from which they explore the rest of the country. Easy day trips from the city allow for hikes…
A Unicyclist Turned Revolutionary – Nicaragua – Central America Travel Guide
A UNICYCLIST TURNED REVOLUTIONARY A California-born engineering graduate named Benjamin Ernest Linder, inspired by the Sandinista Revolution, moved to Nicaragua in 1983 to help the country’s poor. After several years in Managua he moved to the northern highland town of El Cuá, in the middle of a war zone where the Sandinistas were fighting the…