Benefits Of Life In A Backwater

Dear International Living Reader,
The U.S. dollar is down more than 20% in the last year against the euro...down, too, though maybe not as dramatically, against most other currencies you could name and some you might not think of, with one exception I like to remember: the Nicaraguan cordoba. The Greenback has as much buying power in Nicaragua today as it did this time last year.
That's a reassuring thought to me, as Nicaragua is a place I like to spend time.
This still (surprisingly to me) little-known country also continues to offer the best real estate investment opportunities, specifically for coastal or beachfront land, of any country in the Americas. It's a cliche idea among people who've been paying attention to this market for any time, but Nicaragua is a country on the edge of boom. I don't see how anyone investing today could help but do well.
Nicaragua is a beautiful, semi-tropical Eden with a Pacific coast to rival the best of southern California. It is close to the States (too close to be ignored by any imaginative American), and it boasts an affordable cost of living, a growing expatriate community, a fast-developing infrastructure, and the oldest city on this Continent, home to some of the best surviving examples of Spanish colonial architecture anywhere. The tourist can visit the markets in Masaya, climb the volcano Mombacho, hike the jungle, swim, snorkel, or sail, even ride horseback on the beach.
In fact, Nicaragua is the only country in the world I know where this last is true. Anywhere else...go ahead...I dare you...try to gallop your horse mid-morning along the water's edge. Someone will object.
Not in Nicaragua, where few people object to anything.
This country is a backwater, some might say.
Ah, but in this backwater, I might remind them, it's easier, faster and cheaper to build a house, for example, than in the good ol' US of A nowadays. And, I'd argue, the house you might build could be one worth building, made from hard woods and local stones, with a hand-thatched roof or one of handmade red clay tiles, positioned above the crashing Pacific...
Easier, faster, and cheaper in Nicaragua, in fact, to do most things an enterprising soul might want to do. You can build as you like where you like...drive how you like...work or not, according to your inclination. The state will not supplement your non-income, though. (Though the fish and lobster are there for the catching in the ocean...)
Nicaragua is the Third World, but its inhabitants enjoy something we First Worlders are missing--freedom, in its purest, most innocent sense. Life in Nicaragua is not easy. You make your own way...you solve your own problems.
But isn't that the idea?
Kathleen Peddicord
Publisher, International Living
P.S. Nicaragua has something else we First Worlders are fond of--beaches. For all the land in all this world...there is precious little beachfront of note. And, as Will Rogers once remarked, "They ain't making any more of it." Nicaragua has more than its fair share. At a bargain price, as we've been reminding you for some time--at least for a while longer.