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Just north of Costa Rica you will find a country called Nicaragua…ok, that’s enough about Geography lessons. My parents were invited to a wedding of a friend and it took place in Nicaragua, so we decided to go on a road trip, a long road trip…

Due to governments and other political issues, which I’m not going to get into, the communities became poor and are hardly getting any richer by the day. The solution for most is to cross the border to Costa Rica to find work. This has lead to the general idea that Nicaragua is really poor and is not pretty at all…something that is the opposite.

At the border you actually see the poverty in which some people live and in a certain way it reflects the way people are living in Costa Rica right now…well the people that cross the border that is. The border is not all that good looking, the buildings there are not maintained that much, the road is maintained even less and there is this small wall that divides the countries.

Once you continue to move further north from the border you will see fields and fields of earth that are not taken care of and others that are. There are a couple of houses which are big and belong to some of the wealthy people and others that are barely standing. Once you reach the first town you will see a lot more houses and stores, some of which appear to have been abandoned by the town’s people and not taken care of

Though some are very well kept than others. The main cathedral in Managua was partially destroyed by a severe earthquake in 1972 and it now stands in ruins though it’s locked up to prevent access to it by the homeless and other wanderers, such as myself, and thus not putting at risk those people since no one knows for how long it will stand though it would be pretty cool to be able to go in there and take pictures of what’s left of it. I was able to take a couple of photographs from the outside and I would love to go back to take some more photos of that place. A new cathedral was built nearby and the design was done by a Mexican architect and it’s referred to as a box of eggs by some locals because of it’s odd shape. The other churches have beautiful paintings in the celling and the walls which depict the crucification of Jesus Christ as per the bible and also of other saints including the Virgin Mary.

The traditional food varies in some level from the one found in Costa Rica and the rest of Central America. There are some local restaurants which are dedicated to serving the traditional food and one such place is “La Cocina de Haydee” which specializes on this type of cooking and not only that but the uniform of the waiters is the folkloric dress used by the original town’s people. The food is good in places like those and I would not advise eating food prepared by the people on the streets in grills and at fairs.

At the traffic lights and in other places you will see kids begging for money since they come from the poor families. They are often sent by their family members to do this since it generates pity amongst the tourists and some locals, in some cases people will rent these children to neighbors so that they can go beg for money, and the age doesn’t matter. At one traffic light you would see a you girl, probably aged around 12, with a small baby which is most likely loaned by a neighbor or a family member so that she can go and ask for money, nearby you would see another kid that was also asking for money, she was around the age of 8. They are not alone at these traffic lights since if you look around closely you will see the family members or neighbors sitting there waiting for the kids to come back with money. The blame for this type of activity does not solely rely on those people who send these kids as bait to gather money but on those people that give them money, since they see that it’s easier for kids to get money because of their innocence and it’s rather difficult for an older person to get, if we stopped this activity then they would stop sending the kids out to beg for money.

Most of the photographs taken by the tourists focus on the structures and them but hardly any photos focus on what else is out there besides them. I’ve taken some photographs of what happens around and show the other people that actually liven up the place. I suggest that you visit the flickr account that I have so that you can see these photos I’ve taken: http://flickr.com/photos/lmurillo/sets/72157603583470856/

In conclusion I really did enjoy the trip though the weather was a bit hot for my taste. I’m really looking forward to future trips to other countries and sharing these stories with the rest of you.