Nica´s One of My Favorites

Leon is a premier destination for me on this trip, but I gotta admit that Nicaragua itself is a prime destination for me.

With all due respect to my Costa Rican Suzuki mother and her beautiful country and people, I have to declare that Nicaragua might be my favorite Central American country.  However, I´m not sure I can explain why.  There´s something about it I immediately notice once I´m past the formalities and on a bus moving toward my destination, but as I write this I´m still trying to put my finger on it.

It´s not only that Nicaragua, compared to Guatemala, El Salvador, or Honduras, seems so much less menacing, though that truly seems to be the case.  Lonely Planet claims El Salvador has 16,000 shotgun-toting private security guards, and it´s clear that Nicaragua is not nearly as obsessed with basic security as the other countries I´ve mentioned. 

And like the others, in Nicaragua there is poverty, broken infrastructure and the usual political conflict and controversy.

Yet it seems that Nicaragua has better tourist facilities and more features for ordinary joes like me.  For example, I love a good cup of coffee, and El Salvador was almost completely horrible for getting one.  Nearly every day last week I struggled in the morning just to feel awake with the muddy water that passes for coffee in that country.  But in Leon I´ve counted at least three espresso shops so far and I´m sure there are more.  The infrastructure here is already set up to get me moving on a daily basis.

In El Salvador at least so far there are very few entrepreneurs stepping up to provide guiding and other services to places like Volcan de San Miguel.   As the Lonely Planet points out, if you want to go there you have to do all the legwork yourself.  But here in Leon, there are plenty of businesses geared toward meeting the needs of the foreign visitor.

I´m not saying that espresso shops or guide services make it for me.  El Salvador is a fascinating place with very hardworking people who generally are quite welcoming to foreigners, and I still want to swing back there to visit Perquin on my way back north.  But I gotta say the Salvadoreans have a lousy cup of coffee, and after 10 days that´s wearing for me, on top of all the usual chores I have to do just to get around and be around in safety.

Here in Leon and other Nicaraguan towns I feel there are many people in a nascent tourist industry who care about what I need, about where I want to go, and about how I might get there.  At the same time the local scene isn´t spoiled to the point where the visitor feels any pressure to kick up bucks to an industry.  Most importantly, the security situation here doesn´t feel nearly as ¨edgy¨ as in other places in the region.   Altogether that´s a most basic definition of hospitality, and my impression is the Nicaraguans have it in spades.