Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
BILWI (PUERTO CABEZAS)
POP 48,500
This impoverished Caribbean port town and ethnic melting pot sprawls along the coast and
back into the scrubby pines on wide brick streets and red-earth roads, full of people and
music, smiles and sideways glances. Old wooden churches, antique craftsman homes and
ramshackle slums are knitted together with rusted sheet-metal fencing, coconut palms and
mango trees. In a single stroll you'll eavesdrop on loud, jagged Miskito banter, rapid-fire
español and lovely, lilting Caribbean English. Sure, this city has systemic problems
(poverty, decay, crime), and it's never good when international aid is a town's biggest
source of income. But with tasty seafood, great-value historic lodging options, and seaside
indigenous communities a boat ride away, it can also be as alluring as a sweet, yet slightly
sketchy, new friend.
History
Founded in 1690 by three English pirates who called it Bragman's Bluff, the port was al-
ways referred to by indigenous Miskito and Mayangna people as Bilwi (Mayangna for
'Snake Leaf'). Then, in 1894, General Rigoberto Cabezas invaded and flew the Nicaraguan
flag over an area ruled by an English-indigenous alliance for two centuries. In 1925 the Ni-
caraguan government honored Cabezas by naming the port after him. Spanish-speaking
locals still refer to the capital of Nicaragua's enormous RAAN as Puerto Cabezas, or just
Puerto.
Yet even after the English were forced out, English-speaking companies like the banana
giant Standard Fruit, which built the dock, helped keep federal interference in the region
minimal as it siphoned fruit, fish and timber from the Caribbean coast. It wasn't all bad for
the locals. Old-timers still reminisce about the good old days of high-paying jobs and a
thriving middle class. Which is why it was such a tragedy when Standard Fruit pulled out
just before its dock was used in the 1960s to launch Kennedy's Bay of Pigs invasion of
Cuba.
There are still plenty of international pirates and profiteers. They hail from Colombia
and trade in a certain ego-boosting powdery substance, some of which is off-loaded here
and heads north to Mexico and the US.
