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Managua, Nicaragua - (70) more edit 2007-02-09 - rec# 118

Deb and I went back to Granada to fulfill our requirement to leave the country every three months. Hopefully we can get this all taken care of, but that's a different story. Grenada is a small colonial town and a great place to stay. It's almost like returning to the colonial days. The city is full of hand made carts. Made from wood, old cars, pipe...anything they can use. Often pulled by people, but mostly by horses, often decorated with ribbons and bows. The poverty is apparent, as is the love of life. As it turns out there was a bit poetry festival going on. Poetry would become the theme of this adventure... We wanted to see Managua this time. We have been often warned off of Managua because it's "dirty", "dangerous" and whatnot. However, with a guided tour what could go wrong? Well, as is so often the information we get, Managua was none of the things we were told it would be. In fact one of the things most notable to us was the total lack of people (and garbage) in town. Our tour started in the new cathedral. Managua was destroyed in 1972 by an earthquake that killed 10,000 people. So it's a city being rebuilt, in a country of great poverty. Up on the hill overlooking the town is where the Somoza Palace once stood. Destroyed in the earthquake it's now a monument to Sandino. Just below the location of the palace is what I believe was the only building to survive the earthquake. One built by Howard Hughes. So here we have Somoza and Hughes looking down on the city....hum.... There is a peace park in Managua. It's simply a location where hundreds of thousands of weapons have been buried. Tanks, AK-47's, I don't know what all. Broken, dumped in a hole and filled in with concrete. Several monuments dot the area. Considering the history of the area a touching tribute to a peoples search for peace. Last year in San Jose during independence day the president of Costa Rica, Óscar Arias Sánchez spend time in the central park cutting up weapons. I get a clear feeling that these small countries of Central America desire liberation from the need of military arms. THEY clearly don't see their identity in the power of their weaponry. I was impressed (and somewhat surprised) with the number of monuments in Managua (Nicaragua in general) to poets and musicians, as well as to politicians and fighters. Nicaragua seems to be a country full of contradictions. A woman was talking to us at the boarder about the US involvement in Nicaragua. Her comment was that it had been very good, and that it had been very bad. The city of Managua has the most number of trees of any city in the world. They pride themselves in how "green" the country and city is. Green yes, but the US cut down every tree in the country around 1910, destroying all the natural coradores that wildlife needs. From what I've seen it's a country devoid of birds (except grackles) and wildlife. At least as we know of it from Costa Rica. We walked in a national park for 4 hours and saw two butterflies and one bird! There are occasional preserves, but no coradores linking them. Coradores that are essential to the existence of wildlife.