Things You Can Do (or Could Have Done) in Nicaragua That You Couldn’t Do in the USA

* Nearly die climbing a cliff you shouldn’t have climbed (because you are too stubborn to believe advice about how dangerous it is). * Get a haircut for $3. * Surf all year round in one of the best surfing destinations on the Pacific Ocean. * Make a comfortable Nica-style living working as a part-time English teacher, yoga instructor, fitness trainer, or IT technician. * Get your car stuck in the mud and have a local farmer haul it out with a team of oxen. * Buy a small beachfront lot, in walking distance of a five-star resort, for $80,000. * Have a four-course steak dinner at one of the best restaurants in one of the world’s “best preserved Spanish Colonial cities” for less than $10 per person, including wine. * Hire a Spanish tutor for $5 an hour. * Engage in small talk at a cocktail party in 3 or 4 different languages simultaneously. * Buy a six-year-old an elementary school start-up kit, including a backpack, notebooks, pencils, pens, and a ruler for less than $20. Add a bespoke school uniform, new shoes, and a calculator for another $25. * Encounter wild monkeys, rare birds, a boa constrictor, and even a puma on a nature walk within Rancho Santana’s 1,700+ acres of forested preserves. * Travel (first on horseback and then by foot) through nearly 1,000 acres of dense forest to find the source of a river. * Start your own craft brewery for less than $10,000. * Get a massage for $15. * Sponsor a kid’s college education, including tuition, transportation, and food, for $80 a month. * Buy and build your very own cigar bar, on the beach, for less than $150,000. * Be asked to judge the swimsuit competition of the Miss Nicaragua contest. * Hire two full-time caretakers for your aging parent for less than $500 a month. * Buy and build a quaint, four-cabin, bed-and-breakfast for $150,000. * Meet personally with two of the country’s last three presidents. * Hire a full-time housekeeper for $250 a month. * Buy 1,700 acres of prime beachfront property for $400,000, divide it into several hundred lots, and sell just one of those lots, 20 years later, for $600,000. * Watch an amazing sunset almost every single evening. (See below.)