Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Caribbean Coast Highlights
Dive with hammerheads and explore the underwater caves off
Little Corn Island (
Click here
)
Experience true Caribbean food and culture in laid-back
Pearl Lagoon (
Click here
)
Charter a speedboat to the luscious, snow-white
Pearl Keys
(
Click here
) and snorkel with mag-
nificent sea turtles
Groove to classic reggae in a lobster warehouse by the water on
Great Corn Island (
Click
Sip spiced rum, eat fresh fish and dance to Garifuna drummers in
Orinoco
(
Click here
) during
National Garifuna Week
Dance through the streets then party all night during Maypole in
Bluefields (
Click here
)
Feel like a rock star as you are greeted by scores of barefoot children in tiny Miskito villages
around
Waspám (
Click here
)
Hire an indigenous guide in
Kakabila
(
Click here
) and trek deep into the dense jungle
History
Christopher Columbus landed on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast in 1502, during his fourth
voyage, but with the Spanish focused on settling the Pacific coast, their hold on the Carib-
bean was tenuous. Portuguese, Dutch and British pirates patrolled these seas (Bluefields
was named for the Dutch pirate Blewfeldt), attacking and robbing Spanish vessels full of
South American gold. Meanwhile, the British crown cultivated relations with the indigen-
ous Miskito people, who had battled Mayangna and Rama communities for regional su-
premacy long before Columbus came calling. In 1687 they created the puppet kingdom of
Mosquitia, which ruled until the mid-19th century.
During this period British colonists moved with their African slaves from Jamaica to the
Corn Islands, which until then had belonged to the Kukra and Sumu people. They also ar-
rived in Bluefields, where slaves worked banana groves and mingled with free West Indian
laborers of mixed ethnicity to form English-speaking Creole communities that are still
thriving.
English-speaking Nicaraguans have never fully bought into Spanish-speaking rule. Dur-
ing the Contra war, many took up arms against the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacion-
al (Sandinista National Liberation Front; FSLN) while many more fled to neighboring
Costa Rica to avoid the conflict, emptying villages that have still not recovered. Although
the region was eventually granted special autonomy status by the Sandinistas with the
