Trouble in paradise: Ghost hotels replace celebrity endorsements in Nicaragua

Trouble in paradise? You could well apply such a phrase to the current tensions in Nicaragua – although "trouble" rather underplays the extent of what is an increasingly vicious political crisis in a country that had seemed to be finding a cautious stability.

In the last four months, the largest state in Central America (assuming you view Mexico as North America) has descended into a mess of protest, violence and oppression.

Unrest began in mid-April with a series of demonstrations by university students against the government of president Daniel Ortega, but the situation quickly deteriorated, with reports of police brutality, abductions and death. The Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights (ANPDH)…