Tips on tipping in Nicaragua

First of all, I don't claim to be an expert on this subject but I did learn a thing or two during our 6 week trip to this lovely country. When we first arrived in Nicaragua I felt a little unprepared for the service we were about to recieve at the airport. While waiting for our baggage at the carousel two gentlemen offered to help us collect our bags and get them out the door to our rental vehicle. I immediately welcomed the help because between the four of us we had way too much luggage and there were no carts around. These fellas had a trolley so it was all good and they also expedited us through the final luggage scanner (yes, there is an x-ray procedure after you collect your bags before exiting the airport building). I really appreciated the help and these two guys worked hard to get our excess luggage out smoothly. At this point I knew a tip was in order but I was left guessing what was fair, I had know idea! The last thing I wanted to do was not pay them fairly. In the end I figured $5 would be OK and I think that was pretty reasonable. After this introduction to some great Nicaraguan service I decided to look into what the average Nica in the service industry might earn. I understood that Nicaragua was a poor country but I had know idea that most people earn less than $3000/year. This equates to about $10/day. From some of the other reading I have done on the web it looks like a typical daily wage in the service sector might fall between US$5-$10/day. After this research I realized that I could make a difference in someone's day with a tip (propina in spanish) that wasn't going to break my travel budget even remotely. In restaurants a voluntary 10% tip is added to most bills which is good because it separates it out from the 15% government tax that is also on the bill. We got in the habit of leaving extra cordobas for the service since the 10% was being shared with the cooks as well. During a trip over to Isla Ometepe we hired a guide to take us up the Rio Istian on kayaks. We paid good money for the trip ($100 for a motor boat over to the river, 4 kayaks and a guide for 3 hours) but felt the local guide did an excellent job so we tipped him about 200 cordobas ($8). Again, not a huge amount of money for us but it may have doubled his wage for the trip, which is quite significant. I was also very impressed by the service we recieved when we took our rental car in for a cleaning. For 120 cordobas ($5) two guys hand washed and waxed the vehicle, vacuumed the interior, polished the windows and wiped down the interior! I love this kind of service!! I was so impressed that I had to give them a couple extra dollars (50 cordobas) so they could at least have a cerveza on me. At our rental house, which we had occuppied for 6 weeks, there was a caretaker/gardener that we had grown to really like and appreciate during our stay. He was also checking in with us to make sure that we were comfortable and had everything we needed, more importantly, he was our window into the Nicaraguan people. Leyla had many long conversations with him about his life and living in Nicaragua. I wanted to leave a good tip for him at the end of our stay and I struggled with this one a little. In the end we decided $80 was decent, after all, we had enjoyed his beautiful gardens for 6 weeks! This was more than a week's worth of wages for our caretaker so I suspect he was thrilled but again not a huge amount for us. What we came to realize in Nicaragua is that you can expect good service and you can expect service sometimes unexpectedly. Therefore it is important to be prepared and carry some $1 bills or 20 and 50 cordoba bills around. A dollar or two will make a big difference in this country where you are guaranteed to receive service with a smile.