I spent the past couple days in the Mira Flore National Park in North Central Nicaragua. North of the FSLN strong hold of Esteli. Mira Flore has many collectivo farms in the area. They grow coffee and cabbage and other sorts of things. It is sort of a socialist experiment up there. Everyone works together and there is a lot of shared ownership. But now it is sort of shifting towards eco-tourism. Its crazy that a country which seems so raw and on the edge of revolution would invest in tourism infrastructure. Maybe because there is money to be made. It was only recently that so many people became landowners...
The countryside is beautiful. I found myself romantising the lives of the Nicaraguans. Everything was peaceful, green, fresh, and beautiful. But there life sucks. Also, with all of the gardens and crops and coffee all of the folks at the farm I stayed at kept saying "organic, organic." But as I toured around with my guide Lenin, I know seriously, I saw people spraying chemicals and huge bags of fertilizers. How are these folks going to transition into eco-tourism if they use chemicals. Just another contradiction of the third world, I guess.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment