Nicaragua Landmarks

When Bluefields celebrated its 85th anniversary as a city last week, it was a funky fishing port with a reggae beat and an Afro-Caribbean visage--a crazy quilt of brightly painted wooden houses and magnificent churches sprawled along a bay. Long in decay, it was still proud to be different from the rest of Nicaragua. The anniversary festivities, and much that was Bluefields itself, came to a traumatic end last Saturday at 2:47 a.m.

When Bluefields celebrated its 85th anniversary as a city last week, it was a funky fishing port with a reggae beat and an Afro-Caribbean visage--a crazy quilt of brightly painted wooden houses and magnificent churches sprawled along a bay. Long in decay, it was still proud to be different from the rest of Nicaragua. The anniversary festivities, and much that was Bluefields itself, came to a traumatic end last Saturday at 2:47 a.m.