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Managua Rumbles On

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:

I 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?

Over the next two years I visited Managua regularly to do business, collect mail, run errands, see the doctor, attend meetings, and so on. But going to Managua was a chore I disliked, and I grumbled to anyone who praised its limited qualities, “anyone who likes Managua never lived in a real city.” That meant Boston, in my case.

Fast forward to 2000, when Hurricane Mitch’s trail of devastation remained largely untouched and swarms of government assistance were gathering to help rebuild Nicaragua and hopefully set it on a path of sustainability. I was fortunate enough to be a part of that effort, and from 2000 to 2002 I made Managua my home, biting my tongue after two years of swearing I’d never do so. And lucky thing, too, because I met my lovely wife there and learned to like Managua despite myself. Working on the first edition of Moon Handbooks Nicaragua, Josh and I wrote:

Sun-baked and sweltering, Managua is a place of contradictions and challenges. Less a city that "is" than a city that "was," history lurks around every corner; less an urban center than an enormous conglomerate of nondescript neighborhoods, modern-day Managua is what a city looks like when everything has gone wrong.

Managua is not an easy place to get to know, but you will be rewarded for your efforts, for there is much to experience in this intense, clamorous, capital, and spending time among its 1.5 million inhabitants is essential for anyone who hopes to understand the country. The sweating taxi driver negotiating his Russian-made cab down unnamed streets; the university student clamoring for a bigger education budget; the slick, young entrepreneur touting his new theme-bar in the zona rosa; the seamstress in the free trade zone demanding fair treatment – these are the people struggling to shape the new Managua into a more livable city.

Ericka and I left Managua shortly after we married and return to visit several times a year, and in 2006 we even bought a Nicaraguan home of our own. But being away from Managua makes the changes in this city even more dramatic. An unassuming chaos since the revolution years and even earlier, suddenly Managua’s reconstruction has accelerated: since the mid 1990s, tens of kilometers of roads have been repaved, several luxury hotels completed, and a new cross-city bypass built and the changes are more dramatic with each passing year. Clearly Managua, or more specifically, Managuans, are continuing to reinvent Nicaragua’s capital to this day.

We wrote in the second edition of Moon Handbooks Nicaragua that you could trace Managua’s history southward from the city center:

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.

It is more true than ever: though the city’s decrepit north side still crumbles against the shore of Lake Managua, the capital claws its way relentlessly southward towards Masaya. As recently as 2002, when Ericka and I were packing up our Managua apartment in Barrio Tiscapa and heading to a new lifestyle in West Palm Beach, Florida, Las Colinas (and neighboring Santo Domingo) were distant outposts on the Carretera Masaya. But a short four years later those long, empty expanses have largely been filled in. The vacant corner next to the enormous Evangelical church tent blossomed into a gorgeous new Salvadoran shopping center called Centro Siman Santo Domingo (that’s a lot of alliteration). From there to Camino de Oriente, the former end of the city in the late 1990s, an uninterrupted string of car dealerships light up the night sky, and a blitz of advertising proffer everything from designer clothes to imported Italian shoes to advise for investing in Nicaragua’s inchoate stock market. The Centro Comercial, a broad and uniquely Nicaraguan market I used to frequent when doing my household errands in 2001 now pales besides the bigger, brighter, and glitzier shopping centers that have sprouted on all sides. As a Peace Corps volunteer, the Plaza Inter was the fanciest place on the block. Three years later, Metro Centro dwarfed it, and in 2006 Siman threatens to do the same to Metro Centro.

Who is fueling all this consumption? Clearly, Managua’s capitalist class has enough faith in Nicaraguan consumers to invest the millions and dollars that make the new Managua possible. Chalk a bit of it up to the Miami Nicas who spent the revolution in self-imposed Floridian exile, now returned with keen business acumen and enough dollars to throw around in businesses that make sense. But a lot of it’s coming from overseas too, thanks to broadening global financial markets and developing-world savvy venture capitalists. I’d like to think Joshua and I have played an important role in it as well, as over 18,000 travelers have used Josh’s and my Moon Handbooks:Nicaragua to pick their way through Central America’s most interesting country.

Two earthquakes, a fire, and lots and lots of war have kept Managua from reaching its potential, but it rumbles onward, headed for bigger and better horizons that seem to lead continuously to the south. It will never be a Rome or Athens or even a Tunis. But Managua, wholly unique, unlikably likable, is evolving. On behalf of my in-laws, who have lived there since long before the earthquake that pulled it to the ground, and on behalf of Ericka and I, who call it home for ourselves: Rumble on, Managua, rumble on.

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