by Joel Camp

Created on: February 04, 2009   Last Updated: February 12, 2009

Nicaragua is a gemstone among Central American countries. Although nestled between Honduras and Costa Rica, it hold its own when it comes to beautiful vacationing and traveling hotspots. Also, with a government not unlike our own here in the United States, traveling to Nicaragua somehow feels a little more secure when going abroad nowadays.

Nicaragua in 2008 just elected President Daniel Ortega. Shortly before this in 2006, Nicaragua passed a bill making it the third country on the face of the planet to make abortion completely illegal in any form. Nicaragua is a unitary republic, that is, they are divided into 15 departments that all answer to a National Assembly. Due to a high inflation rate, the economic situation of Nicaragua could be articulated as recovering. The nation is doing very well at this; they are industrializing and have dramatically cut their debt.

However, you are most likely not traveling to Nicaragua to learn just about their government and political dealings. When you think of Nicaragua from now on you should think of one wordrainforest. The nation is covered in two million hectares of it, both protected and unprotected. Not bad for a country roughly the size of New York. Those rainforests are thriving too, packed and alive with vivid colors and exotic sounds. Nicaragua is rich in biodiversity. They have numerous amounts of cats including jaguars and cougars. All kinds of birds flourish in the rainforests: everything from eagles to turkeys, from macaws to parakeets. Depending on if you leave your window open at night or not, you could wake up to a bowl of Fruit Loops with the toucan himself. There are two main reserves that maintain these exotic animals, the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve in the north and the Indio Maiz Biological Reserve in the south. One more note, natural resources of the country include gold, silver, copper, tungsten, lead, zinc, timber, and fish.

Tourism is huge not only in Nicaragua, but also in the surrounding areas as well. President Daniel Ortega has said that he will grow this ever-increasing industry to reverse the effects of poverty. Tourism just happens to be the country's second largest industry. That should tell you something about this dazzling and fascinating place. Two major sites that should never be missed while visiting are Lake Nicaragua and Ometepe Island. To delight some folks' childhood fascinations, old pirates of Granada once used these two sites. Lake Nicaragua is the twentieth largest freshwater lake

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