The view of Nicaragua from the window of an airplane is stunning. The slopes of cloud-frosted volcanoes run thick with rainforests. Strips of golden sand stretch along the coasts. Impossibly green islands dot mammoth lakes. At ground level, this Central American nation offers a more immediate sense of its natural riches: a dizzying variety of jumping, howling, swimming, slithering and buzzing life that includes kingfishers, kinkajous and Lake Nicaragua’s famous freshwater bull sharks.
