Guardabarranco: the national bird.
This is an upland region away from the Pacific Coast, with a cooler climate than the Pacific Lowlands. About a quarter of the country’s agriculture takes place in this region, with coffee café grown on the higher slopes. Oaks robles, pines pinos, moss musgos, ferns helechos and orchids orquideas are abundant in the cloud forests of the region.

Bird life in the forests of the central region includes Resplendent Quetzal, goldfinches jilgueros, hummingbirds colibrís, jays arrendajos and toucanets tucanes.

The Toucan is common to the Nicaragua´s rainforests

The Atlantic Lowlands
This large rainforest region is irrigated by several large rivers and is very sparsely populated. Lagoons and deltas make it very irregular.

Nicaragua’s Bosawas Biosphere Reserve is located in the Atlantic Lowlands; it protects 1.8 million acres (7,300 km²) of Mosquitia forest — almost seven per cent of the country’s area — making it the largest rainforest north of the Amazon in Brazil.

Nicaragua’s tropical east coast is very different from the rest of the country. The climate is predominantly tropical, with high temperatures and high humidity. Around the area’s principal city of Bluefields, English is widely spoken, along with the official Spanish. The population more closely resembles that found in many typical English Caribbean ports than the rest of Nicaragua.

A great variety of birds can be observed, including eagles (águilas), turkeys (pavos), toucans (tucanes), parakeets (periquitos) and macaws (guacamayas). Animal life in the area includes different species of monkeys (monos), ant-eaters (oso hormiguero), white-tailed deer (venado) and tapirs (tapir).

ECONOMÍA (ECONOMY)
Exportación (Exports)
Nicaragua is primarily an agricultural country; agriculture constitutes 60% of its total exports, which annually yield approximately US$300M.

In addition, Nicaragua’s Flor de Caña rum is renowned as among the best in Latin America, and its tobacco and beef are also well regarded.

Nicaragua’s agrarian economy has historically been based on the export of cash crops such as bananas, coffee, sugar, beef and tobacco.

Light industry (maquila), tourism, banking, mining, fisheries, and general commerce are expanding. Nicaragua also depends heavily on remittances from Nicaraguans living abroad, which totaled $655.5 million in 2006.

Pobreza (Poverty)
Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, measured in GDP per capita. According to the PNUD, 48% of the population in Nicaragua live below the poverty line; 79.9% of the population live with less than $2 per day; unemployment is 3.9%, and another 46.5% are underemployed (2008 est).

As in many other developing countries, a large segment of the economically poor in Nicaragua is women. In addition, a relatively high proportion of Nicaraguan homes have a woman as head of household: 39% of urban homes and 28% of rural homes. According to UN figures, 80% of the indigenous people (who make up 5% of the population) live on less than $1 per day.

Turismo (Tourism)
Las playas del Pacífico en San Juan

(Pacific beaches in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua)

Tourism in Nicaragua is currently the second largest industry in the nation, over the last 7 years tourism has grown about 70% nationwide. The growth in tourism has also positively affected the agricultural, commercial, and finance industries, as well as the construction industry. Despite the positive growth throughout the last decade, Nicaragua remains the least visited nation in the region.

Every year about 60,000 U.S. citizens visit Nicaragua, primarily business people, tourists, and those visiting relatives. Some 5,300 people from the U.S. reside in the country now. The main attractions in Nicaragua for tourists are the beaches, scenic routes, the architecture of cities such as León and Granada and most recently ecotourism ecoturismo and agritourism agroturismo. (To be continued next week)

LA FECHA EN ESPAÑOL (THE DATE IN SPANISH) 
In Spanish, you start with the day of the month, followed by the month, and then the year, as in:

19 de julio de 2009 (July 19, 2009)
There are several ways of asking the date in Spanish:

¿Qué día es hoy?  What day is today?

¿A cómo estamos?  What’s the date?

¿Qué fecha es hoy?  What’s today’s date?