Nicaragua
Rama, the Head of the River Print E-mail
Written by Randall Wood   
Friday, 19 December 2008

loading boat at ramaRama's not as far out of the way as it used to be in the days before the glistening, paved highway linked it with Managua, in fact before about 2000 Rama was at the end of one of Nicaragua's most spine-crushing roads. Call Rama the town that links the Caribbean, English speaking Atlantic Coast with the Spanish speaking, cattle raising highlands of Nicaragua's interior, and treat it with all the respect of such a frontier town. In fact, a longtime riverine port and trader town, El Rama is a melting pot where Mestizo cattle traders meet Caribbean steamer captains, and dark skinned Creoles meet Nicaraguan "Spaniards" from the Pacific.

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 10 December 2008 )
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San Rafael del Norte Print E-mail
Written by Randall Wood   
Monday, 08 December 2008
Hillsides of Matagalpa

Thick with cool mist and rolling countryside, surrounded on all sides by coffee but not itself a coffee town, the little mountain pueblo of San Rafael del Norte is one of my favorite destinations and one of the towns that best evokes for me the spirit of Nicaragua's rugged north. As we wrote in Moon Nicaragua, to know San Rafael del Norte is to know Nicaragua's history. General Cesar Augusto Sandino made this wild corner his home for a while as he staked out positions against the US Marines and formed his philosophy of rugged determination, nationalism, and independence. That his philosophy and name were later co-opted into the basis of the Sandinista party is another story, one that the locals certainly would not be much interested in hearing.

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Odyssey Print E-mail
Written by Randall Wood   
Tuesday, 31 July 2007

25 May 1999, El Hato

Arch back, reaching away

from the soft earth that sustains you,

Eyes high to spirals traced in starlight

wrapped in curling sheets of woodsmoke

from endless kitchen fires

spinning in the Coriolis loops

of excrement settling in pit latrines

and Managua traffic's orbits

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 16 January 2008 )
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If You Were to Visit Me in El Hato Print E-mail
Written by Randall Wood   
Tuesday, 24 July 2007
Randall Wood

These days we are at the end of the dry season and there's hardly a cloud in all the sky. At midday the temperature reaches about 105F and the air burns in an inescapable way. By night the temperature drops and that same sky fills with stars and silhouettes of those mountain peaks, and the air fills with the sound of crickets and the groan of frogs. In mid-May when the rainy season begins, heavy dark clouds will pour in from the east, thundering over the massive cliffs of El Fraile and soaking us in fat, wet drops. To get to El Hato you walk in twenty minutes from the highway, which is itself nothing more than another dirt road. From where you step off the bus - possibly a beat up old German truck with benches -you walk over a series of little hills covered in brown grasses and filled with cattle grazing, and in fallow fields. In the next few weeks those fields will be plowed and planted. By June they'll be full of tall corn and sorghum. By December they will be full of dark green bean plants, knee high with little white flowers.

If you pass children walking over to the neighboring town of Santa Rosa for classes in the morning, they'll be in blue and white school uniforms. Some won't have any shoes on. They will all smile and say "adios" to you.

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 17 July 2007 )
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The Things They Carried Print E-mail
Written by Randall Wood   
Monday, 16 July 2007

They arrived with everything under the sun. The sun, that piercing sun that boiled their enthusiasm and faded their clothing. Enthusiasm - they stepped onto the runway tarmac with that too, as well as two checked pieces of luggage each and a carry-on of the proper dimensions. It wasn't long before they were sweating: the things they carried weighed a lot.

The things they carried were going to, in turn, carry them-twenty two fresh faced aspirantes called Nica Fifteen-through two years of the toughest job they'd ever love. They had, among other things in those sixty-six bags, exactly what Peace Corps had recommended: three months of shampoo and prescription meds, comfortable shoes, and long sleeved cotton 'nun' dresses. There were cassette players and address books, t-shirts and dozens of pairs of underwear still virgin to be sacrificed to the gods of barbed wire, lavandero, and sol. There were paperbacks and new journals of crisp white pages for recording all the wonder. There were cameras and water bottles and ballcaps and ballpoints. All in all, the things they carried were rather homogenous.

But the new aspirantes were individuals ...

Last Updated ( Monday, 16 July 2007 )
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Under the Shadow of Giants Print E-mail
Written by Randall Wood   
Sunday, 18 March 2007
Image

Most Nicaraguans live their entire lives in the shadow of one volcano or another. Particularly striking is the road from Managua to Chinandega via León, which tracks along the bases of the Maribio volcanoes. They are tremendous.

Experience what it's like to live under the shadow of these active volcanoes. From L to R: San Cristobal, La Casita, Telica, Cerro Negro, El Hoyo

Last Updated ( Sunday, 18 March 2007 )
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The Pimp Tower Print E-mail
Written by Randall Wood   
Sunday, 18 March 2007
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Plot for a Not-so-funny Sitcom: Pimpy-Aaaaarrr and Pimpy-Jay band together to write the first and best adventurer's guide to Nicaragua.  Pimpy-Aaaaarrr completes his work with the Corps of Engineers and moves out of his luxury crashpad in the wealthy Las Colinas neighborhood of Managua and packs up his office in the extravagant and colonial Casa Grande. Together he and Pimpy-Jay look for a place to live. They wind up at...

Last Updated ( Sunday, 18 March 2007 )
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Beef, Creamed Chipped: The Military Tries its Hand at Development Print E-mail
Written by Randall Wood   
Wednesday, 15 November 2006
family

It was sustainable development at its worst. I should have seen it coming as soon as I noticed military vehicles parked in front of the San Diego escuela primaria, their olive drab and tan paint jobs doing remarkably little to camouflage them in arid, treeless San Diego. Inside the classroom, a half dozen American and Nicaraguan military personnel were debriefing a roomful of bewildered Nicaraguan eight-year-olds and their instructor.

Last Updated ( Monday, 16 July 2007 )
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Operation Paslama Mama Print E-mail
Written by Randall Wood   
Monday, 23 October 2006

Turtle icon Two days away, Hurricane Mitch was already throwing increasingly bigger waves up on Nicaragua’s Pacific shore. The sky had been erupting in half hour intervals and the storm winds made no sign of diminishing. Tumbling down onto the beach, the gang joined a crowd of Nicaraguans gathered around the still form of Lepidochelys olivacea, the Nicaraguan Paslama turtle. At two hundred pounds and nearly four feet long, she was beautiful and inspiring, dull colored but still glistening with sea water.

Dumptruck was getting nauseated by the poaching. "I can’t watch anymore," he said dejectedly. "It’s too damn depressing. Ten billion chicken eggs in this damn country, and they’ve got to eat the turtles’ only hope for survival."

But Spider had gotten an idea.

Operation Paslama Mama: The Actual Account of a Real Environmental Adventure

Last Updated ( Saturday, 18 November 2006 )
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Managua Rumbles On Print E-mail
Written by Randall Wood   
Friday, 13 October 2006

Monument by Plaza InterI first visited Managua in 1998. I was living in a quiet pueblo a half hour’s drive up into the hills above the capital, but traveled to the capital once a week for training and errands. But trips to Managua were exciting because of the chance to see friends again, not because it was an exciting place to spend time. Rather, Managua was dusty, chaotic, expensive by the standards of every other Nicaraguan community I was familiar with, hard to navigate around in and harder to appreciate.

Who’d have guessed I’d eventually make it my home?

Today, as Managua stretches inexorably southwards, its layout reflects its violent history: The ruins of old Managua remain at the water's edge--from there, in all directions, spread hundreds of shapeless, characterless barrios that rose from the rubble after each new natural or manmade disaster. Along Carretera Masaya, pricey shops, clubs, and restaurants continue sprouting up to service new neighborhood developments of the wealthy. The following are some thoughts on Managuan development:

Last Updated ( Friday, 13 October 2006 )
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Moon Handbook 1st edition calendar Print E-mail
Written by Randall Wood   
Saturday, 07 October 2006

When you've finished the book, the manuscript has been edited, and you're signing copies, it's easy to forget just how much work went into transforming your idea into a finished product.

Here's the calendar and timeline Joshua and I published back in 2002 when we were writing the first edition of Moon Handbooks Nicaragua. Who says being a published author is glamorous?

Last Updated ( Sunday, 18 March 2007 )
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The Daily Catch at El Transito Print E-mail
Written by Randall Wood   
Sunday, 29 January 2006
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My wife Ericka and I never miss an opportunity to visit El Transito, the little fishing village on Nicaragua's Pacific shore where her family maintains a beach house. It's a special place to Ericka, rich with childhood memories, and always a place where she feels at peace with the world. Lacking those same memories, I don't tend to see it with the same degree of enthusiasm.

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 15 February 2006 )
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Lazy Days on the Estero Padre Ramos Print E-mail
Written by Randall Wood   
Sunday, 22 January 2006
Image
Don Carlos
If you could go back in time about 500 years and walk up the shoreline of the Estero Padre Ramos (on Nicaragua’s Pacific Shore) you would meet someone like don Carlos. A slightly built man whose layers of tight muscle are stretched taut over a wiry frame, Carlos is laconic and polite, thoughtful and austere. His hand on the tiller of a 25 horsepower Yamaha outboard he carried down to the shore on his bronzed shoulder, he carries us out into the estuary and up the tributaries that carry fresh water down into the mangroves and the wetlands that make up one of Nicaragua’s most gorgeous corners.
Last Updated ( Sunday, 09 August 2009 )
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Where to Find the Book Print E-mail
Written by Randall Wood   
Wednesday, 18 January 2006
ImageThe Moon Handbook to Nicaragua was a bigger hit than any of us ever imagined. The first edition, published in 2003, was expected to sell about 8000 copies; instead it sold over 18,000. The second edition, published in November 2006, sold over 2000 copies in the first two months it was on the shelves. Here's where you can purchase it.
Last Updated ( Saturday, 21 January 2006 )
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Granada's Real Estate Boom Print E-mail
Written by Randall Wood   
Tuesday, 17 January 2006
Image“Face it, Nicaragua is the ugly house on the prettiest street in the neighborhood,” said Charlie with a laugh. We were talking about the real estate boom in Nicaragua, which continues to expand at an unprecedented rate. Judging by the number of tevaed and slightly sunburned gringos gawking at the listings outside his office, he was right. Charlie’s a trooper and a veteran in the real estate boom that started just a couple of years ago and now runs the risk of imploding under the weight of all the real estate agencies it has spawned, eager to dine on the growing feeding frenzy that is Granada.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 17 January 2006 )
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Moon Handbooks: Nicaragua Print E-mail
Written by Randall Wood   
Monday, 02 January 2006
ImageThe fabulous second edition of Moon Handbooks, Nicaragua was published in November 2005. The first edition became an immediate best-seller and well loved travel companion for intrepid, Nicaragua-bound adventurers.

Visit the book's official webpage: http://www.moon.com/catalog2/nicaragua.html.

Last Updated ( Friday, 10 March 2006 )
 
Mercado Huembes Print E-mail
Written by Randall Wood   
Tuesday, 01 October 2002
Cavernous and cacophonous, if you can't find it for sale at Huembes, it's probably not sold in Nicaragua. Second in size (and in danger) only to the open-air Mercado Oriental, Huembes is a good place to get out of the rain on gloomy Saturdays to check out handcrafts in wood, leather, shell, and clay, to eat bowls of hot soup, and pick up some fresh vegetables to last you through the upcoming week.
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 25 January 2006 )
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