Published in Tico Times on 2nd of June 2015
BLUEFIELDS, Nicaragua – To get to Bluefields from Nicaragua’s capital of Managua, first you take a bus for about six hours. At the last stop you move to a boat: either a speedboat that will bounce over the river for two hours or a slower one that takes six hours, Mark Twain-style.
It’s either that, or a ride on a bouncy dirt road that was supposed to be upgraded to asphalt years ago. As Bluefields residents like to say: “Them people in Managua will take another 20 years before that road is built.”
Once a thriving colonial harbor under British protection, and used for the export of coconut, banana and lumber, Bluefields now has a worn-down look of old wooden houses rotting away in the tropical heat.
Continue reading Bluefields: the dream of independence for a forgotten colonial harbor