| To cigar smokers, Nicaragua is already legendary. | | | | country from 1912 to 1933. Left-wing guerilla Augusto |
| Through regime change, social upheaval, and revolution, | | | | Sandino led an effort to expel them, which was |
| this Latin American nation has produced some of the | | | | partially successful; but Anastasio Somoza Garcia, a |
| world's finest tobacco. And since the post-1959 "cigar | | | | conservative, later secretly ordered his assassination, |
| diaspora"-when many of Cuba's great cigar makers | | | | putting an end to a brief left-and-right coalition |
| fled the country to seek more propitious conditions | | | | government. The Somozas ruled until 1979, when a |
| than those they expected to find under Castro-it's | | | | party named after that dead guerilla-the FSLN, or |
| produced many of the world's finest cigars, too. | | | | Sandinista party-ousted them from power. The wheel |
| Since 1959, Nicaragua has been a cigar powerhouse, | | | | turns again. And again: during the '80s, the country was |
| producing some of the highest-ranked and best-selling | | | | torn apart by war between the right-wing, US-backed |
| premium cigars in the world: CAO, Perdomo, Padron, | | | | Contras and the left-wing, ruling Sandinistas (who, on |
| Don Pepin Garcia and Drew Estate among many | | | | the good side, reduced the country's widespread |
| others. It competes even with the wares of the | | | | illiteracy by a stunning forty percent within five months, |
| Dominican Republic and Cuba, currently the cigar | | | | but on the bad side, committed human rights violations |
| world's reigning superpowers. But there's a lot more to | | | | during the civil war). |
| this country than just great smokes: from the | | | | The Sandinistas, incidentally, almost destroyed the |
| marvelous ancient footprints of Acahualinca to the | | | | country's preeminence among cigar-tobacco growers. |
| fact that it was the first Latin American nation to elect | | | | In trying to put the desperately-poor, and politically |
| a woman President, Nicaragua has a history worth | | | | encircled, nation on a more secure economic footing, |
| knowing about-and one that may impact its future as | | | | the Sandinistas ordered tobacco farmers to switch to |
| a cigar lover's capital. | | | | cultivating cigarette tobacco. (This was before the |
| Roughly the size of New York, the country is rich in | | | | "cigar boom" of the 1990s; many observers expected |
| natural resources-so much so that nearly twenty | | | | the market for cigars to continue to dwindle.) |
| percent of its territory is taken up by one or another | | | | Wherever a person may come down politically, cigar |
| officially-designated nature preserve. Predictably, this | | | | smokers can agree that this was a mistake! |
| fertile and beautiful country has been the subject of | | | | Both sides in the nation's long culture war were heavily |
| frequent political power struggles: first between the | | | | hit in 1998 by Hurricane Mitch, one of many natural |
| various Spanish Conquistadores and the indigenous | | | | disasters to wreak havoc on this beleaguered country. |
| population, which has had a presence in the area for | | | | After decades of civil war had handicapped its |
| at least six thousand years and was nearly wiped out | | | | economy and wrecked much of its infrastructure, this |
| by 1529. Nicaragua was later annexed by the Mexican | | | | cataclysmic hurricane did away with nearly seventy |
| Empire, finally achieving independence in 1838; since | | | | percent of the infrastructure still standing at the time. |
| then, rival conservative and liberal factions have fought | | | | Under the circumstances, it's amazing that Nicaragua |
| each other for control of the country's destiny. There | | | | continues to enjoy the regional importance that it |
| was civil war during the 1840s and '50s, during which | | | | does-but sometimes amazing things happen. Nicaragua |
| an American pretender, William Walker, briefly declared | | | | makes three hundred million in exports every year |
| himself the country's leader after double-crossing the | | | | (mostly agricultural), boasts one of the best-regarded |
| Liberals who had recruited him to fight in the war. | | | | rums in Latin America (Flor de Cana), enjoys a |
| (Several Latin American countries' armies united to | | | | flourishing tourism industry and, of course, makes some |
| chase him out of the country the following year, in | | | | truly heavenly tobacco. Though it's considered a |
| 1856.) | | | | developing nation, it did recently earn a ranking from |
| This pattern-conservative-vs.-liberal infighting, with | | | | the World Bank as the sixty-second best place to |
| occasional interference from the nearest world | | | | start a new business-the highest-performing Central |
| power-continued through the twentieth century. A | | | | American country in this particular ranking, except for |
| US-backed Conservative regime ruled for decades | | | | Panama. |
| early in the century, with Marines occupying the | | | | |