He testified that Mr. North was alarmed by heavily armed Soviet helicopters that had just been delivered to the Managua airport.

On Saturday evening, aides to Mr. Borge were at the Managua airport to meet the Miskito Indian leader Brooklyn Rivera, who in the past has directed anti-Sandinista guerrilla groups in the remote Atlantic coast region.

Nonetheless, after Mr. Rapaccioli was released, police waiting at the Managua airport tonight arrested the former head of the Social Christian Party, Agustin Jarguin Anaya, who was returning from abroad.

As I arrive at night, I wonder also if anyone knows any good, safe, hostel near the Managua airport to spend the first night.

Visitors to Nicaragua usually land at the Managua airport, but Managua, devastated by an earthquake in 1972 and still among the ugliest capital cities in the hemisphere, has little to offer.

Mr. Shevardnadze, the highest-ranking Soviet official to visit Nicaragua in the 10 years of Sandinista rule, was met at the Managua airport by President Daniel Ortega Saavedra, and laid a wreath at the tomb of Carlos Fonseca Amador, a Sandinista martyr, before beginning an intense schedule.

The first thing that I noticed when I arrived in the dusty Managua airport, besides the tanks parked in the landing field, was an enormous poster of an unmistakable Daniel Ortega, clad in blue jeans and a cowboy shirt, holding an infant with an earring.