Uncovering Mexico
Jeremy Schwartz is the Mexico correspondent for Cox Newspapers. He is based in Mexico City.What's on this page?
All the entries posted on October 10, 2006.
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Home > Uncovering Mexico > Archives > 2006 > October > 10
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Blackout nation
When the power went off for perhaps the sixth time that day, the office worker in the Nicaraguan Ministry of Tourism nearly lost it. Apparently, she needed to send an urgent e-mail, but her computer screen remained stubbornly blank. “Santo Dios!� she screamed. “I can’t take it anymore.�
Nicaraguans are at their wits’ end with a grinding energy crisis that results in numerous, daily blackouts. On the humid Caribbean coast, the power goes out daily from 4 a.m. to 10 a.m., bringing air conditioners and fans to a halt. In the colonial, tourist city of Granada, it’s from about 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. And in the capital of Managua, blackouts can strike at anytime, disrupting normal business and frustrating thousands who depend on computers to do their jobs.
The energy crisis has, of course, become an issue in the upcoming presidential election. Daniel Ortega, the old Sandinista leader, blames privatization (a Spanish company called Union Fenosa has run Nicaragua’s electric grid since the system was privatized in 2000). Ortega also looks to cheap Venezuelan oil from Hugo Chavez as a solution, and he has used direct agreements with Chavez to boost his popularity.
As it stands now, Nicaragua can’t produce enough of its own energy through dams or geothermal plants, and it can’t afford the petroleum needed to run its plants at capacity. The biggest fear is that a blackout will strike on Election Day (Nov. 5), leaving the system open to manipulation.
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Lost in translation
Nicaragua, one discovers shortly after arriving, has an almost complete lack of street signs. The streets, I am told, actually do have names, it’s just that they haven’t been used in so long that nobody remembers what they are.
Getting directions is a surreal experience. Here’s the official address (it is on the letterhead) of my hotel in Managua: 30 meters south of the Restaurant La Marseillaise.
That’s all well and good, but only if you know where that restaurant is.
Another hotel in Managua had this tortuous address: From the Hercules Gym, one block south, one block east and 2½ blocks south.
Even the taxi driver got lost trying to get there.
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