Not from what I could tell. It just seemed like a very poor country with an authoritarian dictator. The roads were better in El Salvador and the govt has clearly tried to promote tourist areas and stop corruption. Education seems better or the same everywhere else. Costa Rica is basically America. Even Honduras had much more tourism promotion, evidence of commerce and middle class spending imo. Maybe healthcare is better but I don't know.
Nicaragua had by far the most Kafka-esque border situation and has a reputation for cops and border people asking for bribes.
The one thing they seem to have done really well is not letting the gangs get a foothold like El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Nicaragua is a very safe country. Although having been through basically anarchy for a week - I believe they just have a very proud law-abiding culture. They don't have a pot to piss in but no one except one guy asked for money going across the roadblocks. And he got $3. I got the impression they would rather starve than be criminals.
I've been everywhere except Panama now and Nicaragua is the only country I don't feel optimistic about. Even w/o the protests I think I'd feel the same. They seem to be going backwards. The people are very very cynical.
I guess China wants to build another Panama canal through their massive lake and basically destroy Ometepe Island - one of the gems of the country and a huge tourism draw? Is sounds horrible and I guess the people are massively against it. But of course the Chinese are bribing officials. Caveat: this was just one person telling me and I don't know the details.
Ok hopefully it's defunct:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_Canal
Last edited by suzzer99; 05-23-2018 at 02:36 AM.