Getting to Know Nicaragua

San Juan del Sur, center of major surfing action in Southwest Nicaragua

Our tour started in Managua and stayed within the southwest part of the country. Prior to departure I read the Explorer’s Guide: Granada, San Juan del Sur & Southwest Nicaragua: A Great Destination.

Explorer’s Guides: Granada, San Juan del Sur and Southwest Nicaragua

I found the guide provided accurate information. Nicaragua’s travel infrastructure is very under developed and unless you are very adventurous (and speak reasonably good Spanish) or are going to a specific location, you may find a tour operator as your best introduction to the country. Careli Tours hosted our trip and I understand they have hosted many Wisconsin/Nicaragua Partner trips over the years. They did an excellent job.

So you have decided to be adventurous and strike out on your own.  Well consider this: I did not see a single street sign, but I did see signs pointing in the general direction of the bigger cities. In fact, locations have no true address just a relative location based on a landmark that might not have been present for many years. Here is the address of Wisconsin/Nicaragua Partner’s office in Managua:   ”From INVUR 1 block to the lake, 1 block down, 20 yards to the lake, Batahola Norte”.  Here is another address: “From the Lourdes Church, two blocks west, past the Pali supermarket, take a right at the next corner where an old woman sells fruit, past the Bar Maguey and go to the end of the dead end street, where there’s a two-story white house with a black gate, where the gringos live.”

Still want to navigate on your own in Nicaragua? Consider this: our tour bus had a snorkel, convenient when the road courses through streams rather than over them on a bridge.

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