Contents:» Managua
» Masaya and Los Pueblos
» Granada, Las Isletas and Mombacho
» Ometepe, a green paradise
» Artistic Solentiname
» The gold-diggers rout
» San Juan del Sur
» Take a swim in the Pacific
» Monkey for a day
» León
» Coffee plantations in the mountains
» Corn Island Managua is the capital and was once a beautiful city, but was totally destroyed in an earthquake 1972. Downtown was never rebuilt, so the inhabitants sometimes calls the city "El Pueblón" which means the big village. Since the international airport is just 11 kms away this will be your first stop and you can also take a look at the city. A good place to get a general view is from the hill behind the Hotel Intercontinental, there you can stand at the side of a huge statue of Sandino and look out over the whole of Managua and the Managua Lake. The oldest findings are conserved in the museum of Acahualinca. Those are footprints from people who 6.000 years ago was fleeing from a volcano eruption. The ruin of the old cathedral, is were the downtown once was. It is partly restored and equipped with an interesting sound and light show. Alongside is the old National Palace, beautifully restored and converted into a cultural center. Here you will also find the modern Rubén Darío Theatre and the Presidential Palace. If you are visiting the area during a weekend you absolutely have to take a stroll along the seafront. It is boiling with street life, as whole families are out walking, eating and riding on the roundabout. If you want to go shopping I can recommend the Roberto Huembes market, among other things they have a big area with handicraft. There are several galleries in Managua for those interested in art.  On your way from Managua to Masaya you just have to make a little detour to se the volcano in the national park "Volcán Masaya". It is possible to drive with the car all the way to the crater. There you can see the smoke puffing away with a hissing. With a little bit of luck you can see the red magma. Together with a local guide you can go down in one of the natural tunnels in the volcano. Masaya is known for its handicraft with hammocks, embroidered blouses, leather, woodcarvings and furniture. You will get the best price at the local market; it is big, noisy, with narrow paths and definitely worthy of a visit. There is a market for handicraft in the center of the city; it is more elegant but not that exiting. South of Masaya there is a row of villages often called "Los Pueblos", each of them with its specialty in handicraft and folklore. In San Juan de Oriente most inhabitants are occupied making and selling ceramics. Both quality and design is of very high class. In Nicaragua it is unusual to see a group of sofa and armchairs; but there are lots of rocking chairs of all kinds. The craftsmen in this area manufacture many of them. Granada was founded in 1524 and much of the colonial architecture is still preserved, despite attacks from pirates, earthquakes and fires. Place yourself at a café in the central plaza and enjoy the atmosphere. Then walk some blocks away to the newly renovated monastery San Francisco, it was also founded 1524. The monastery is now a museum. Among other things they have some remarkable statues of stone from the Indian cultures that populated Nicaragua before the entry of the Spaniards. Granada is situated at the northwest corner of the Nicaragua Lake, the largest lake in Central America and the 10th in the world. Just south of the city there is a wonderful archipelago. It consists of 365 small islands that are said to have its origin from when the volcano Mombacho exploded a long time ago. The upper part flew off and fell down into the lake. These islands are now covered with vegetation and a tour by boat gives you an amazingly relaxing feeling. On several islands there are small restaurants. Go ashore on an island, order fish and tell the boat to pick you up some hours later. Sit down at a table with a cool beer, look at all the birds and enjoy the tranquillity. Take a look south, while you are sitting with your cool beer waiting for the food. There the volcano Mombacho is piling up high above the lake. The upper part is a cloudforest with a lot of orchids and other flowers, facilitating an exuberant bird life. It is possible to go with a car half the way up. Thereafter a hike that takes the life out of your legs awaits you, but it's worth it. While talking about volcanoes we can as well go on to Ometepe which is one of the largest islands in a lake. It consists of the two volcanoes Maderas, which is asleep, and Concepción, which is still active. The island is a tropical paradise, very green and with abundant animal life. By all means, take a tour up the volcano Maderas, on the slopes you will find coffee plantations surrounded by rainforest. If you are very fit and a little adventurous you can climb the Concepción. To find your way up you have to bring a local guide and start in the morning before dawn. It takes five hours to climb up, and about six hours to climb down. You can go to Ometepe with a boat from Granada or from San Jorge close to Rivas in the south of Nicaragua. Since the Nicaragua Lake is that big there is room for another archipelago. Solentiname is situated furthest south and known because the poet Ernesto Cardenal founded a community for artists there in the 1970th. There is still evidence of that. Many artists paint in their special primitivism style. Others carve birds and fish in balsa wood and paint them in strong colors. While in Solentiname you have to take a half-day tour to the national park of Guatusos, about 45 minutes south by boat on the border to Costa Rica. There you glide up the river, looking at turtles, gigantic lizards, kingfisher and other birds. To Solentiname you can go by boat from Granada, or you can take a flight from Managua to San Carlos and a shorter boat trip from there. From the Nicaragua Lake flows the great river San Juan to the Caribbean Sea. As it is navigable they planned to construct a canal here, before building the Panama Canal. During hundreds of years the pirates took this way to plunder the city of Granada. In the 19th century hundreds of thousands adventurers used this waterway rout to California to hunt gold. Now you can take a boat from San Carlos and go down the river through deep rainforest. After a few hours you will reach the fortress El Castillo, built to prevent the pirates from going up the river. It is situated at a stream where the boats could not pass rapidly, and therefore was an easy target for the canons. Now the fortress is a museum, there is also a little hotel. But don't stay there. Go on to Bartola, another half-hour down the river. There is a little hotel just where the little river Bartola meets Rio San Juan. It is a wonderful place with good food and nice and helpful staff. They will take you on guided tours through the rainforest in a national park. You can even try to paddle canoe, dug out of a trunk just like in the Stone Age. Where the Rio San Juan meets the Caribbean Sea is a village called San Juan del Norte, also called Greytown. They say the airport will soon be renovated. Then it will be possible to take a flight back to Managua, now you have to take the boat the same way you arrived. When the gold-diggers had passed through Nicaragua they came to the little harbor San Juan del Sur, where boats were waiting to take them to California. Now it is a sleepy and cozy little fishing village, very popular among tourist that does not like the big luxury facilities. Many small hotels and restaurants have been opened, also by foreigners that "has not found a good enough reason for leaving". In the center of the village there is a long beach, sheltered from the waves of the Pacific Ocean. During some months, from November, thousands of sea turtles comes to the beaches north and south of San Juan del Sur to spawn. Spending a night there can be an unforgettable spectacle. I witnessed when hundreds of small sea turtles was hatching and struggled up from the sand and headed for the sea. There are several small villages all along the Pacific Coast where you can take a swim or just sit and watch the waves rolling in. If you are into a little bit of luxury then you'll go to Barceló Montelimar, just one hour by car from Managua. It is a five star resort; food, drink, beer, wine, rum, sports activities are all included in the price. When one has been creeping up volcanoes and crawling through the jungle, it can be nice to relax a few days by the pool-bar, reach out with the hand and say "una piña colada, por favor". Now it is not only the monkey that can swing around in the crown of the trees. The phenomena called Canopy Tour has come to Nicaragua. At La Chocolata close to the city of Rivas, they have built wooden platforms in the crown of the jungle trees. You will hang under a cable and pull yourself from tree to tree. At the different platforms guides are waiting and tells you all about flora and fauna. If you easily feel dizzy at high altitudes you can stay at the ground and ride on horseback, while your friends are playing Tarzan. The city of León was until 1851 the capital of the country. They have the biggest cathedral of Central America. The hearsay is that the plans were mixed up in their way from Spain when the cathedral was to be built. The plans used in León were originally for a cathedral in Lima, the capital of Peru. There are plenty of other churches from the colonial era. The whole city has preserved the old architecture with one-store houses with tiled roofing. The houses have a high ceiling and are constructed around a yard with plants, which makes the houses cool even though the climate is extremely hot. Rubén Darío, one of the front poets in the Hispanic literature during last century, had his home in the city and is buried in the cathedral. Of course there is a museum to honor him. León is situated in a very fertile area where the main crop used to be cotton. Now it is almost all gone. Since cotton is cultivated with heavy use of poison that destroys the soil, it has been very difficult to replace it with other crops. After several years as fallow fields, they have now begun to grow beans, soya bean and corn. Another important crop is sugarcane. One product distilled from the sugar is rum. Flor de Caña close to Chinandega produces rum of a very high quality. If you are coming in a group it is possible to visit the distillery and see the whole process. Around Chinandega they also cultivate bananas for export. The export product without comparison most important for Nicaragua is coffee. The best coffee is grown at an altitude over 1.000 meters. Therefore the city Matagalpa has become a center for the coffee. If you want to see a coffee plantation and how they take care of the coffee beans you shall stay at the hotel Selva Negra just outside Matagalpa. It is an old coffee plantation with guided tours where you can see the cultivation and other facilities; you can ride horseback and go for walks in the surroundings. They also have a very good restaurant. If you want to have the real Caribbean feeling you only have to take a flight from Managua and 1.5 hour later you will come down on Corn Island. The main island has 2.620 inhabitants and is just 6 km2 so you can walk around the entire island. The tourist industry is not yet very developed in spite of the fabulous position, but there are some hotels and restaurants. Take it easy, swim, snorkel at the coral reefs, eat good food, drink rum and dance to a local band. The island was a popular hideout for the pirates that plundered the Spanish ships on their way to Europe with gold. A few kms southeast of Corn Island lies a Spanish galleon 72 feet down in the sea; and the saying is that there are plenty more to be discovered, probably still with their golden cargo still there. Just bring the diving suit and the spade... | 
