by David Seiter

With plans in hand and everybody’s approval, you’ve got two options to make your blueprints reality: hire a builder/contractor or do it yourself with the help of a maestro de obras (foreman) and a consulting architect to stop by the workplace weekly to oversee the progress. Besides the obvious time and financial considerations, the decision depends on your understanding of the day-to-day machinations of contracting.

Many inexperienced people will opt to hire a contractor, but don’t make the mistake of being an absentee owner. The nightmarish tales of things being done completely wrong or not at all continue to pile up. The biggest single mistake people make is trying to manage the process from afar.

by J. Hanson

When H.C. Kang arrived in Mexico to start up operations for a Korean textile firm, his first move was to get help from the government agency charged with helping foreign investors.  Three years later, when he was hired to check out Central America for the US-based Popular Textiles, he tried to find the Nicaraguan equivalent. He couldn’t find one. He came to Nicaragua anyway, at the invitation of a Zona Franca industrial park developer. But by the time Kang’s plane landed in Managua, the developer’s project had been put on hold. Despairing of what to do with his guests, the would-be developer dropped them off at the office of ProNicaragua, an investment promotion agency, bringing Kang right to the door of the agency for which he had been looking. 

by Carl Slugger

The traveler experiencing Nicaraguan culture encounters endless paradoxes. The cathedral dominates every town square, but the disco a block away features dance styles based on stimulated sex, for example. Or the keen Latin sense of honor in nations governed by systems of chicanery. Nicas are a laid back, take come-what-may people-who produce prize fighters who can take your head off.

If you’re familiar with baseball, take in a Nicaraguan game to experience one more paradox. A game that was called the leisure pastime, Nica style. Try Masayas’ Estadio Roberto Clemente, a brick and masonry piece of nostalgia reminiscent of the old style American stadiums Wrigley Field or Fenway Park, set on the rim of Laguna Masaya with a sweeping view of the lake. The stadium is divided into three sections. The center section, behind home plate, is the most expensive (less than $2). The right field line bench seating is for the fans of the home team, left for visitors. Each of the sections is divided by fences and barbed-wire to prevent clashes between opposing fans. In some parks the visitor’s bus is in a fenced-off area. In the past, fans have overturned and burned buses if the home team lost the game.

by Charles Munkee

Would you like to see the tropical forests from the tree tops the way the monkeys do and swing through the jungle like Tarzan? Or fly through the forest like an eagle, all without breaking your neck? Take a canopy tour. You might even get to see a monkey, or all other manner of wildlife.

Originating in Costa Rica ten years ago, the idea is simplicity itself.  The participant is first suited in a repelling harness, which straps around the waist and thighs and given a pair of leather gloves. After a lecture on procedures by the guides, the participant climbs a ladder to a fiber glass platform suspended by steel cables about 15 meters up in a large tree. A rope hangs along the length of the ladder, which the participant is connected to with a fall arrester. Once you reach the platform, you are hooked to a rope running around the platform. In other words, you couldn’t hit the ground if you tried to jump. From that platform there is a steel cable or nylon rope, called zip lines, strung to another platform in another stout tree down hill. The participant’s repelling harness is hooked to a pulley wheel on top of the cable. Sit down, let the cable take your weight, push off and let gravity do the rest. Maximum acceleration is about seven meters a second.

by James Spencer

As a writer and journalist I have been told many stories about Nicaragua. I am sure that at least one of them must be true. This is the sad story of mass delusion, not to mention quite a few serious headaches.

Jose Gomez was a young brick-builder. He lived with his wife Anna and eight children in a small shack on the edge of Santa Maria. Jose’s basic tools were a small trowel and a medium sized ball pein hammer. The hammer features prominently in this story, so let me relate how Jose came into possession of this wonderful Sears Craftsman tool. One day as the evening sun was setting low in the sky, Jose left work and was cycling home. Suddenly he glimpsed something bright glinting in the grass at the side of the road. He stopped and there amidst the grass was a beautiful, bright -straight from the factory- Sears Craftsman hammer. Jose couldn’t believe his luck. It was like a gift from heaven.

by John Edward Longhi

To buy my dinner for the evening, I walked down to the edge of the beach. Fisherman carried their morning catch into the market or sold it straight from their boats. When the marketing was concluded, helpers removed the large outboard engines from boats and, using large logs, rolled the “pangas” onto the sand. The villagers chatted with the fishermen and peered into the containers of sea bass, mackerel and red snapper.