I travelled from Honduras to Nicaragua and onwards to Costa Rica in the last week and learnt from both Hondurans and Nicaraguans that Nicaragua now requires a compulsory pre-registration online to enter the country which should be done at least 7 days before travelling. I found out a mere 2 days before going (by land) from Tegucigalpa to Managua and made 2 trips to the Nicaraguan consulate (which thankfully got it all sorted within the 2 days) which took up not *too* much time, but they say it's been in force for 2 years already yet there has been almost no mention of it anywhere.
I can't seem to find the online form I used in the consulate (then later at home after it didn't work at first), but here's something similar to it -
https://www.migob.gob.ni/migracion/t...es-al-turismo/
It transpires that people coming from El Salvador and Honduras are scrutinised a lot unlike those to/from Costa Rica as a way to stop gangs coming into Nicaragua. Needless to say, the land border crossing was torturously long - about 3 hours to clear both Honduran and Nicaraguan immigration (compared to less than 1 exiting from Nicarauga into Costa Rica)
At the moment, Nicaragua seems calm and peaceful, and still beautiful, of course.