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Nicaragua Transportation
In 1993 Nicaragua had 26,000 kilometers of roads; 4,000
kilometers were paved, 2,200 kilometers were gravel, and
the rest
were earthen
(see
fig. 11). The Pan American Highway,
heavily
damaged during the civil war, runs north to south for 369
kilometers through western Nicaragua, linking Managua with
Honduras and Costa Rica. A modest system of paved and
gravel
roads connects the populated areas of the Pacific lowlands
and
also smaller cities in the central highlands. In 1993,
however,
eastern Nicaragua remained almost without roads, and the
primary
road to the region from the west stopped at Rama short of
the
Caribbean coast. During the strife of the 1970s and 1980s,
many
of the country's bridges and roads deteriorated even
further
because of fighting and lack of routine maintenance.
Most of Nicaragua's government-owned railroads are only
nominally operational. Rail travel is possible from
Managua north
to León or south to Granada on Lago de Nicaragua. The
existing
system consists of 373 kilometers of 1.067-meter narrow
gauge in
the Pacific region and an isolated three kilometers of
1.435-
meter standard-gauge line at Puerto Cabezas in the
northeast.
Several trains a day carry passengers south from Managua
to
Granada, or north from the capital to León. The
León-to-Corinto
section has been out of service since 1982, when floods
damaged
the tracks. The government has plans to contract a new
standardgauge line from Corinto through Managua to San Juan del
Norte on
the Caribbean, but lack of funding has delayed
construction.
The country has 2,220 kilometers of inland waterways,
including two large lakes, Lago de Managua and Lago de
Nicaragua,
and five significant ports, two on the Pacific Coast and
three on
the Caribbean coast. Corinto and Puerto Sandino are
Nicaragua's
principal ports on the Pacific Coast; the smaller
Caribbean coast
ports are Puerto Cabezas, Bluefields, and El Bluff. Rama
is a
river port were goods or travelers from western Nicaragua
change
to river boats to continue their journey to Bluefields.
The
country's principal port, Corinto, is a deep-water port
with
alongside berthing facilities, and is suitable for general
import
and export cargo. Puerto Sandino, the second largest
Pacific
coast port, handles petroleum products through an offshore
buoy
and pipeline; it is not suitable for deep-water berthing.
Although mined by the United States in the 1980s, neither
harbor
suffered permanent damage. The Caribbean coast ports are
hampered
by a lack of rail or road connections with western or
central
Nicaragua, where most economic activity for the country
takes
place. Bluefields and Puerto Cabezas are used primarily
for fish
and lumber exports; El Bluff is a military port.
Augusto C. Sandino International Airport, twelve
kilometers
outside of Managua, is the country's principal airport.
Although
ten other cities have paved airfields, none have scheduled
airline service.
Data as of December 1993
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