Published: Feb 4th, 2005
Source: Wall Street Journal
DOLLAR'S PERFORMANCE: Up 17%
BEST DEAL: Old colonial house, $100,000
Nicaragua Dollar up 17%; deluxe new resorts
Nicaragua? For many Americans, the name alone conjures images of revolutionaries and civil war. But that all ended 15 years ago, time enough to build infrastructure and some deluxe properties. Just last October, the group that runs the Lapa Rios ecolodge in Costa Rica opened a sister property in Playa Ocotal, Nicaragua, called Morgan's Rock. Now, Leigh Ann Cloutier of Rico Tours in Austin, Texas, books travelers on joint jaunts to the Four Seasons in Costa Rica and then on to Morgan's Rock; she hires cars and drivers for the roughly three-hour trip between the two resorts.
Travelers who have been to both countries say Nicaragua is like Costa Rica was 20 years ago, except there's even more on view, from an active volcano to a rich history. "It was an extraordinary learning experience," says Alan Bloch, a retired investment manager from Los Angeles who took his wife and two daughters there a few months ago. Mr. Bloch says the draw wasn't just in talking to people about the war and the political history, it was also about meeting adventurous people from around the world. The family swam on a private beach, planted trees and visited a butterfly farm.
Some travelers are so enthusiastic they're investing in the country and even buying homes. Jeff Kaller, a real-estate executive from St. Augustine, Fla., recently decided Nicaragua is "poised to explode" and is investing $20 million in a boutique hotel near Morgan's Rock. New Yorkers Joe and Elke Bergeron just bought a three-bedroom colonial house in Granada, where the old national theater is being renovated and galleries are springing up. Such houses need work, but are going for $100,000. With its horse-drawn carriages and old churches, Nicaragua "feels like going back in time," says Mrs. Bergeron.
Nicaragua: Peaceful times for tourists
It's quiet and remote but best of all it's peaceful. Yes, peaceful.
This is, after all, Nicaragua, where revolution and civil wars raged until 1990 as the Sandinistas came to power and then were fought by U.S.-backed rebels. Unlike Costa Rica, its neighbor to the south, Nicaragua is still perceived by many U.S. citizens as a dangerous place, with little to offer travelers.
But, as my wife and I watched the birds from our kayak, the only threats we encountered were the menacing sounds from howler monkeys eyeing us from the trees above.
Today Nicaragua is finally being discovered as a destination. More than 500,000 tourists visited in 2005 -- up 15 percent from the previous year, according to tourism officials. A major tourism campaign was launched earlier this year in the U.S. and Europe, its two primary markets, using the slogan, "A Country With Heart," to stress the friendly local culture.
Nicaragua is one of the Western Hemisphere's poorest nations, with nearly half of the people earning less than $1 a day, so tourism is also a potential boon to the economy. But while the country's political and economic situation remain in flux -- presidential elections are slated for next year and more than $4 billion of the country's debt could be forgiven as part of the G-8 accord -- it is basically safe and stable.
"The real image of Nicaragua is a country that is safe and one that is rich in natural resources," said Nicaragua's tourism minister Maria Rivas. "Here you can have an authentic experience that will make your travels much richer."
Nicaragua also offers scenery and affordability. The latter probably can't be stressed enough, since the U.S. dollar doesn't go as far as it used to in Europe.
Lush hillsides
During our weeklong trip, we found that people, no matter how poor or rich, were more than happy to greet us with a smile. There was only one time when someone asked for money, and most were willing to answer our questions.
Our first stop was Managua, the nation's capital. This was more of a pit-stop before visiting other locales, but we did walk around the city, which sits next to Lake Xolotlan.
We visited the city's center, home to Plaza de la Revolucion, the county's National Museum and the tomb of Comandante Carlos Fonseca, considered the father of the Sandinista movement who was assassinated in 1976, three years before his party took control of the government. His tomb rests near the burial site of Santos Lopez, another Sandinista leader who taught guerrilla warfare.
We left early the next morning and boarded a bus bound for the coastal village of San Juan del Sur.
On the way, we watched the scenery change from a grimy cityscape to lush, green hillsides that give way to the Mombacho volcano, which boasts a cloud forest and dozens of different species of birds and reptiles.
A bit farther in the distance are the twin peaks of the Maderas and Concepcion volcanos on Ompetepe island. The majestic cones that inspired Mark Twain when he visited in 1866 rise above Lake Cocibolca (also known as Lake Nicaragua) and can be reached by all-day hikes.
We arrived in Rivas, a small town that's a bustling center of commerce with one crowded intersection full of buses, bicycles and taxis. Our foreign faces were quickly spotted in the back of the bus by locals who arranged other means of transportation for us. We were whisked away to a 1980s-era Nissan with two women and a young girl sitting in the back. We had about 20 seconds to decide whether to jump into the front of the taxi known as a collectivo or grab our luggage and find our own way. We took a chance and went along for the ride.
Escape to nature
Upon arriving in San Juan del Sur, life slows down and takes a relaxing turn. The town built on a hillside overlooks a horseshoe bay dotted with fishing boats and small yachts. Restaurants with thatched roofs line the beach, reminiscent of coastal villages in Baja California.
An infinity pool, where the water cascades over the edges, awaited us at Piedras y Olas Hotel and Resort. Here we sipped on a cocktail and marveled at the sunset, telling ourselves how lucky we were to be away from mobs of demanding tourists.
At night over dinner, we met Cathy, a former Boston schoolteacher who moved to San Juan after visiting several years ago. She warned us that the town isn't cut out for everyone.
"If you want to run around and do lots of activities, this isn't the place for you," she said. "But if you want to relax, unwind and read a good book, this is the place."
Soon after she told us that sometimes she has to take cold showers due to electrical storms, the power was knocked out and we were left with a romantic candlelight dinner.
Our next stop was Morgan's Rock, an eco-lodge just north of San Juan owned by a French couple. The area was once devastated by deforestation but is now a sprawling nature reserve replanted with more than 1.5 million trees. Monkeys, iguanas and crabs are everywhere.
The lodge's 15 bungalows are located on a hillside next to a bay so close that the waves pounding the beach are enough to rustle you from your sleep. The resort blends seamlessly into nature. Guests can plant their own trees, take a sunset kayak trip down an estuary, ride horseback or trek on guided hikes. Many of the ingredients used in the resort's dishes are grown on-site.
Our last stop was the colonial city of Granada, founded in 1524, and home to centuries-old churches and some of the most brightly colored facades in the world. Vibrant blues, reds and yellows are splashed on buildings like an artist's palette. Horse-drawn carriages still cart people around but the city is built for walking. We decided to duck into the Dona Elba cigar factory where the owner treated us to a couple of robustos and showed us a picture of him and now-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dating back to the 1980s.
Despite efforts to improve its image, Nicaragua has a ways to go before it gets the full respect of other countries. Even in nearby Costa Rica, I was unable to exchange Nicaragua's cordobas for cash. The banker looked at me and said outside of Nicaragua, the currency is worthless.
I couldn't have disagreed more. As I tucked the bills away in my pocket, I knew that they would come in handy again one day when I return.
Nicaragua: Contra to what you think
This Central American country is on the brink of a 'tourist revolution'
By Richard Bangs
Special to MSNBC.com
Updated: 7:52 p.m. ET Aug. 12, 2005
In the mid-70s New Yorker Michael Kaye skritched his way to Central America to spend a season surfing. He landed in Costa Rica, which then had little infrastructure and less tourism. He recognized the potential, and started a little business that took clients hiking through the cloud forests, rafting the russet rivers, exploring the piping volcanoes. He built a series of small environmentally-friendly lodges in the jungles, and pioneered a style of travel that would come to be called ecotourism. Thirty years later Costa Rica is the ecotourism capital of the world, with a gadarene rush of some 1.4 million visitors last year, and with so many lodges and operations flying under the eco-banner that the defining qualities of wildness, diversity, fertility and isolation are creaking under the green-leaning crowds.
It comes as no surprise, then, that ‘the godfather of ecotourism,” as Michael has come to be known, has turned his attention to new contours to the north in recent months, to a place that might be compared to Costa Rica before the swarm, a once-troubled country finally bathed in peace, and blessed with natural Bianca beauty: Nicaragua.
So, when Michael invited photographer Sally Solaro and me to join on a reconnaissance of Nicaragua, we accepted with alacrity. We rendezvoused in Granada, the colonial capital on the shores of Lago de Nicaragua, only a hop from Costa Rica on a new air taxi, Nature Air. Michael looked so much different than when I knew him in the 70s…then he passed for a jaunty Che Guevera, with a long black unkempt beard, insurgent hair and leather sandals….he was, in a manner of speaking, a sandalnista. Now Michael has transformed not only the travel industry, against its will I should add, but himself, sporting natty Ex Officio wear, his chin porcelain smooth, and his hair a short, neat George Clooneyesque crop specked with grey. “We all change. Tourism has changed. Countries change. Fourteen years ago Nicaragua was unthinkable as a travel destination. Now it’s the safest place in Central America, at the brink of a tourist revolution,” Michael beams in explanation.
The Nicaragua that capers in my mind is from chilling images from the late 70s, a country then of rapine and fire, bleeding in civil war. The conflict ended with the Sandinistas' 1979 overthrow of the Somoza family's corrupt, four-decades-long regime. Then came the dozen years of postwar fighting as the American-backed contra rebels -- with the assist of a U.S. embargo -- tried to push the Sandinista Front of National Liberation out of power.
Sally Solaro
A colorful crab cowers amongst the vines of the jungle floor.
The embargo was lifted after the Sandinistas lost the 1990 presidential election. Foreign investment dipped toes in, some adventurers poked about, including Michael. Quietly the country has returned to a state of grace. Visitor numbers has increased 170% since 1993, from 200,000 to 525,000 last year; tourism dollars increased some 400% in the same time frame, from $30 million to $150 million. And Michael thinks the tourism volcano is just beginning its tremblers.
We begin our own discovery with a kayak tour of Lago de Nicaragua, a lake too vast to see across, second largest lake in all the tropics, where 20 years ago guerillas skulked among the broad-leafed trees of the 365 volcanic islands. Now the islands are garlanded with Century 21 signs offering pieces of paradise to snowbirds. The one occupied tree we encounter is festooned with a leggy spider monkey sporting a Daniel Ortega-like moustache. He would look better without the facial hair, Michael suggests.
We rotor across water the temperature and color of tea. In the middle distance the mile-high Mombacho Volcano lushly blends with an uncertain sky. We glide beneath a rainbow of feathers, from tropic cormorants to Amazon kingfishers to green herons. Along the shore are bright emerald clusters of sea lettuce (Chlorophyta), water hyacinth, giant mango trees, the fruit tree called poponjoche, and the bright-blossomed national flower, the Sacuanjocheink. Outlying islands look like green animals in repose. The whole world seems alive here, top to bottom.
Like Mesoamerican warriors we whip back to shore, and seize one of the many horse-drawn buggies that spindle in and about the dreamlike city of Granada. Not long ago the ghosts of the Chorotega Indians haunted this city, crossing telephone wires to kindle intrigue and evocations of clashes with the Spanish who settled here in 1524, one of the earliest foreign settlements on the continent. But self-pity is absent now. The mood is one of hope, lambent optimism for the future, and the streets are busy, wares, from hammocks to human hair brushes to hawksbill turtle shells, are being hawked with zest; children are skylarking in the alleys.
Michael takes the seat looking backwards, quipping it is because he likes looking back to a land that is like Costa Rica 27 years ago. We clop along past Spanish-style pastel-hued houses, under palms and pepper trees, by clumps of old men with leathery skin stretched tight over high, sharp bones, alongside energetic murals, beneath baroque cathedrals with big cedar doors, and beside shops flogging crocodile boots and Cuban cigars. We make it to San Juan de Oriente, the ceramic capital of the country. But unlike destinations where touro-dollars have spawned factories of kitsch, here the craftsman work in small cooperatives, or from their homes, and create superb works celebrating a pre-Columbian style. We watch in one darkened room as a master spins the clay to a plate while his young daughter crouches in the corner doing her homework, a tableau unique to this time and place.
During the California gold rush ships sailed south from New York to the mouth of Nicaragua’s Rio San Juan. Gold miners then boated up the 100-mile-long river to Lago de Nicaragua, and then made a 15 mile overland trek to the Pacific Ocean, where another ship took them north to San Francisco. This was also the route that for many years was considered the preferential path for a trans-ocean canal, but politics (and caveats about the dangers of volcanoes) pushed it to Panama. Now we trundle this route that never was the final miles towards the Pacific. A couple miles before the coast we turn down a dirt road outstanding in the number and quality of its ruts to make our way to the first five-star eco-resort in Nicaragua, Morgan’s Rock Hacienda and Ecolodge.
Named not for Captain Morgan of pirate and rhum fame, but rather Alabama Senator John Tyler Morgan (1824-1907) who championed the Nicaraguan canal route, the resort sits atop a shimmering bay overlooking a giant reef crag that the honorable Morgan supposedly proclaimed as the Pacific egress of the canal.
Sally Solaro
Kayaks at the ready on Lago de Nicaragua.
Michael Kaye wrote the urtext on ecolodges. And as we step up the German-engineered suspension bridge to our bluff chalets on a curved hillside above the bay, he observes that Morgan’s Rock benefits from the “low expectation factor.” Nobody really believes Nicaragua could host an Aman-style eco-resort.
The chalets have their backs to the hillside and their fronts up on stilts, creating the impression of being in a tree house. The main rooms are open on two sides, giving floor-to-ceiling views out through the trees to the beach and the sea. The effect is to blur the boundaries between inside and out. “Awesome,” Sally, who is a critic of Andrew Harperesque standards, appraises.
Spacious and intricately designed, the chalets combine contemporary simplicity and traditional materials. The columns are polished trunks of eucalyptus trees, the floor is made from thick boards of a lustrous dark reddish wood known as guapinol, and the walls are hand-cut chunks of volcanic rock. The furniture is all hand-made by local artisans. There are open-air showers, private gardens, and terrace decks, where locally grown coffee is served pre-breakfast.
The resort even has its own signature sound system, defined by invisible frogs that have a croak somewhere between a quaking duck and a bleating goat. But after a spell this is the noise to lock out, the noise to listen beneath, and there is then revealed an aural delight of hums and hymns, tintinnabulations and canticles of the rain forest.
The morning brings not only a vertiginous view of the curved-like-a-blade bay, but also green iguanas meditating inches beyond the balcony, looking like watercolors, or Tantric art. A branch away slings a troop of white-bearded howler monkeys, who also look as though they could use a shave here in the new Nicaragua. The country seems betwixt its tousled past and its clean-lined future, and this lodge carved into the heart of a primary rain forest seems an adept bridge.
Michael and his wife Yolanda love to bike, but on a tandem, and they shipped theirs on the Nature Air flight and brought it to Morgan’s Rock. The lodge property includes a reforestation project in which some 1.5 million trees, hardwood and fruit, have been planted in the last five years. They call visiting this part of the private sanctuary “agrotourism,” and it is optimized for biking, with labyrinthine back roads and trails that pitch through fields and forests practically vibrating with more shades of green than the spectrum allows.
Sally and I hop on mountain bikes provided by the lodge and take off with a whirr of derailleur gears, tooling about alongside Michael and Yolanda, sending up blooms of blue butterflies, feeling tough and kinetic as we pass beneath a mother and baby brown-throated three-toed sloth. Afterwards we grab sea kayaks on the deserted beach and bevel out and around the eponymous rock, to within spitting distance of Costa Rica. Then to complete the adventure triathlon we hop on horses, and go galloping down a jungle path, holding back as an agouti paca, a tropical rodent that looks like a cross between a rabbit and a squirrel, ruffles across the road.
Sally Solaro
Nicaragua is called the “land of volcanoes” with over 40 volcanoes across the country.
After the incongruous luxury of Morgan’s Rock we head back to Granada, and walk its cobbled streets in the silky afternoon air. The entire city was gutted by William Walker, the American filibuster who declared himself president of Nicaragua in 1856, and was shot by firing squad four years later. The city has been given a face lift, freshly painted in mustard, peach and salmon, and now looks more like a colonial city than in its heyday. “Transformation is more often that not good,” Michael comments in his koan-like way. He offers himself as proof…he went from hippie to hotelier and harbors no regrets. Nicaragua has transformed from hot zone to hot destination. History, the lesson seems, is simply a rough draft. As we walk west off the southwest corner of the plaza we pass a sign that says “007 Barbershop,” and Michael lights up, and pulls me inside. “Time for you to transform,” he suggests, his merry eyes filled with the Pied-Pipered lanterns of the old mystery tour itself.
I sit down in a torn red vinyl chair, and my barber, Luis, in his bleached white guayabera, pulls out a straight razor and sharpens it on a belt, something I’ve only seen in movies. “What do you want cut?” Luis asks. Caught up in the moment, I look in the mirror and see a moustache I have sported for 30 years…it is disheveled, streaked with gray, with wild hairs leaping out in all directions. “Shave it off,” I say, pointing to the moustache. Before I can reconsider it is gone. I don’t recognize my face at first…it seems to hang like a lantern with a chalk-white upper lip. But then I warm to the fine finish, the cleaner grown-up look as the haircut continues. By twinkling transmutation a barber shop in Nicaragua becomes a magic glass into which I stepped, and then step out with a past elided, and a future thick with possibilities.
A Crowded Field of Contenders Vying to Be 'The Next Costa Rica'
By STUART EMMRICH
Published: January 9, 2005
Source: New York Times
For the past decade or so, Costa Rica has been on the "must do" list for travelers who want to experience a guilt-free (but still occasionally luxurious) vacation, as it has been home to a growing number of eco-resorts, including the trend-setting Lapa Rios. (The luxury factor went up a notch with the recent arrival of the Four Seasons on the Peninsula Papagayo, bringing with it a state-of-the-art spa and a championship golf course.)
Now some other countries in Central America - including Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua and even Guatemala - have begun to muscle in on Costa Rica's territory.
In particular, a lot of people like to compare Panama to Costa Rica 15 or 20 years ago. But that analogy is not quite right. Sure, there is a ton of nascent eco-tourism, and an embarrassment of wildlife and natural beauty to see - just as in Costa Rica. But parts of Panama are undeniably first-world, and priced accordingly. In many ways, it is much more user-friendly for the casual adventurer than other developing nations: Many people speak English; the United States dollar is the official currency; the drinking water is clean; the government is stable; there are some nice hotels; and crime is low. The downside of this is that it's harder to vacation here on an ultrathin wallet. Unlike Costa Rica 15 years ago, Panama isn't a backpacker's nirvana. That said, what's your pleasure? Whitewater rafting? Bird-watching? Monkey-viewing? Surfing? Snorkeling? It's all there.
High on the list of destinations for many travelers to Panama these days is the Punta Caracol Acqua-Lodge, (507) 612-1088, www.puntacaracol.com.pa, which features six solar-powered luxury bungalows suspended over the waters of Almirante Bay, near Bocas del Toro. Double rooms start at $132 a person in low season, $162.50 a person in high season.
Honduras, with several hundred miles of Caribbean coastline, mountains and rain forests, is drawing both adventure seekers and bird-watchers. Visitors go to scuba dive around the Bay Islands off the northern coast, to see the famous Maya ruins of Cop‡n, or to explore the cloud forests of La Muralla and Sierra de Agaltanational parks or the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve.
One luxury eco-resort in Honduras is the Lodge at Pico Bonito, (504) 440-0388, www.slh.com/picobonito, with 22 cabins, each with a veranda, set in the middle of the rain forest, where nearby you can bathe beneath waterfalls or go rafting on Class I to IV rapids. Double rooms start at $155 in low season, $180 in high.
After years of political turbulence, Nicaragua is beginning to emerge as a popular eco-tourist destination, as word gets out about its pristine beaches, six active volcanoes and what has been called the largest area of primary-growth rain forest north of the Amazon. Morgan's Rock Hacienda and Ecolodge, on the Pacific coast near San Juan del Sur, has 15 bungalows - all of which face west, so that you can watch the setting sun each evening from your private deck. Double rooms start at $151 a person in low season; $179 in high season; (506) 296-9442, www.morgansrock.com.
