Chil's Point of View….

Not personal… not stereotypes.. just playing with what I saw/experienced… And just enough information to use when bugging Nelly about Nicaragua.
Here goes -

1. Nicaraguan roads have tons of Cabs/Taxis
I stood on the corner for about 12 minutes on a busy street, and counted the number of cars going past. I only counted the ones going in one direction – to reduce double counting if a car makes a U-turn upstream, and also since I could not keep up with numbers when both lanes had car.
So in 12 minutes: 17 taxis; 2 cars which look like pirate taxis; 6 regular cars (or 8 if I include pirate taxis); 1 horse with a trailer; 1 school bus (used as a regular transport bus), and 7 motor cycles.

2. Nicaraguans love Nacatamales
I have always bugged Nelly about this as everyone in the family would get excited that someone was going to make Nacatamales. During 2005 Christmas Eve in LA, we drove around looking for a Nicaraguan restaurant which ‘would be open AND would serve Nacatamales’. I made fun at disappointed facial expressions as LA was without Nacatamales at the time. Fast forward 2 years later, and the word Nacatamales makes people jump.
Other funny Nacatamales story – A famous club in Nicaragua was open midnight of New Years day (dunno why they did open before then to countdown). Their special for the Night was that they would have free Nacatamales for everyone who attended. The part which was not advertised – Nacatamales would only be served from 6 AM onwards. I guess it was a great marketing gimmick to get people to stay over 6 hours in order to eat these little tamales.

3. Be prepared for aggressive driving
With so many taxis on the road, the majority of drivers are aggressive. Taxi and Bus drivers are the worst drivers, and the most aggressive

4. Never underestimate the power of Nacatamales
See debrief # 2 above

5. Many people say Oriental market is dangerous
I am still trying to figure out what this expression means:
“Don’t go to Oriental market. They will kill you with beans over there”

6. The best chicken in the world comes from ‘Tip Top’
Tip Top is a Nicaraguan version of KFC or Popeye’s Chicken. It even does deliveries

7. Dollars vs. Cordobas vs. Pesos
Cordobas(Cords) is the official Nicaraguan currency. But US dollars are readily accepted anywhere, and when used, someone will give you change in the local currency.
Currently US$ 1 is about 18 Nicaraguan Cords. A local will probably confuse you and say US$1 is about 18 Pesos.  At any given time, someone can tell you something costs XX bucks. XX bucks might mean XX US Dollars or XX Cords or XX Pesos. Ask what ‘bucks’ they are referring to.
The other problem is that Peso is not documented anywhere, and it is a local way to refer to Cords. Now you know, but you will be confused the first time someone refers to this currency.

8. Everyone should know what ALT-64 does on computers
When you go to a internet café, the probability that you will be using a Spanish keyboard is high. The problem is that the @-sign does not appear on the keyboard (and shift-2 does not do the trick either). You have to enter the special combination of right ALT-64. If you ask how to enter the @-sign, everyone will at you weird and surprised that you do not know what the combination does.

9. Spanish speaking country, but they have a lot of English channels
Spanish is the official language. English and Creole is widely spoken on the Atlantic coast. Most of the English is spoken like how a Jamaican would speak – make explains why reggaeton is a big hit in the area.

10. Nicaraguan wine. Anyone?
I could not find a Nicaraguan wine that I could taste. But there were plenty of different rums readily available.

11. Beer results: Victoria tastes better than Toña
I double fisted the local Nicaraguan beers – Toña and Victoria. During my taste-by-taste analysis while in San Juan Del Sur, I found that I preferred Victoria. Our server said Toña used to be the best, but they “reduced their quality” and now Victoria is better. I wonder that Toña brewers did to ‘reduce quality’.

12. AVIS Nicaragua vs. AVIS America vs. AVIS website
AVIS Nicaragua says people in America do not know what cars Nicaragua has. So the website will always give the wrong availability of cars. Hmmmm… I wonder why someone does not fix that. I also wonder why they are able to pull down reservations, pull down AVIS Preferred Membership data, and car brands…. But someone, the next piece of information is mysteriously excluded.
Anyone want to do some computer consultancy work for AVIS to fix this problem?