NICARAGUAN ADVENTURES
Country emerging as tourism hot spot
Sledding at top speed down a live volcano is not something I would ever choose to do on vacation. But we were travelling in Nicaragua with our teenage kids, and volcano sledding was their No. 1 choice of excursions.
As I flew down the steep pebbly face of the black volcano astride a rustic wooden sled, I plastered a grin on my face and tried to focus my jittery mind on being brave rather than terrified so my children wouldn’t think I was a wimp. Probably not the best time to forget our guide’s instructions on how to brake.
The ensuing high-speed wipeout and bloody scrapes on my face and leg earned me the nickname Gnarly Mom from our teens for the rest of the Nicaraguan adventure — so, of course, it was worth it.
Ascending and sliding down Cerro Negro, an active volcano near Leon, was the most memorable of many novel experiences we had when my husband Andrew and I travelled with 17-year-old Celia, 19-year-old Solomon to Nicaragua for a week in December. We chose Nicaragua because we enjoy practising our Spanish. We also sought a mix of outdoor and cultural adventures.
Even the early morning drive to the volcano was fascinating. Most Nicaraguans in the countryside grow and raise their own food and have chickens, pigs, cows, dogs and horses. We also shared the road with children pulling wagons full of sticks, whole families riding motorcycles (seeing three people — often including a baby — on one bike isn’t uncommon) and carts pulled by beefy oxen.
We knew we were in for an adventure when, during the 90-minute drive from Managua to Leon, we pulled over twice to order street food such as fried cheese, plantain chips and quesillos, and once more for a photograph on the shores of Lake Managua with the famed Momotombo volcano in the background.
The Central American country is becoming a hot destination for North American and European travellers for good reason, and the country is working diligently to embrace and entertain adventurers. While many still associate the country with revolution and civil war, today’s Nicaragua shows few traces of the violent conflicts that ended 27 years ago. The country is peaceful, and agriculture and tourism are flourishing.
Nicaragua, a country in transition, turned out to be a perfect spot to connect as a family.
We stayed in three places during our eight-day trip: Charming boutique hotels in the colonial cities of Leon and Granada, and thatched bungalows nestled into the cliffs at Morgan’s Rock, a small eco-resort near the Pacific beach town of San Juan del Sur.
Leave your stilettos at home. Nicaragua is a casual country — we found no occasion to dress up — and the cities, while pedestrianfriendly (even for stray horses and donkeys) have uneven sidewalks and gaping holes in the pavement (a.k.a. ankle-breakers). Using a wheelchair or a walker would be a huge physical challenge. Even pushing a stroller would be tricky.
Leon is a university town, the second-largest city in Nicaragua. It is nicknamed the City of Poets and is the cultural hub of Nicaragua. Like most colonial towns in Latin America, Leon is built around a large central square lined with a cathedral, cafés, restaurants, important civic buildings and hotels.
In Leon and Granada, the squares were bustling with live music, food, cheerful families, artisan marketplaces and street performers. The bustling food markets are adjacent to the squares, and although they are pungent and intriguing with giant papayas, piles of plantains and vats of pickled chili peppers, they lack the sensory charm of markets in France or Turkey.
We explored the colourful city on foot from lovely Hotel El Convento, where the beautiful, peaceful interior courtyard is populated with birds bathing in the centre fountain in the morning and bats darting around the banana trees in the evening. Many families update the colours of their houses during the holidays every year, so the doors and walls along the streets of Leon are a delightful mix of greens, blues, pinks and yellows.
Given the tropical climate, many restaurants and cafés operate in open air and have inviting gardens and hammocks where guests can relax during the wait for food and drinks — which, especially in Leon, could be quite lengthy. While waiting for lunch one afternoon at a charming café called Las Dos Fridas, I swung gently in a hammock to quell my hunger-induced irritation at the delay. But the dishes, once served, were prepared with such care, and the setting was so relaxing, that I felt silly for importing my North American-style impatience.
From Leon we also took a halfday kayak trip to the Juan Venado Island Nature Reserve. Paddling through the estuary, we spotted dozens of species of exotic (to us) birds such as great blue herons and snowy egrets nestling among the mangrove forest. The highlight of the outing was cradling newly hatched olive ridley sea turtles that were being protected by naturalists post-hatching and would be released into the sea that evening to ensure their best chance of survival.
After a well-earned, delightful lunch of fresh fish at a funky hostel on the beach, we stopped in the small village of San Jacinto, known for its boiling volcanic mud pits, which serve as breathing holes for the nearby volcanoes. The village children hawk the mud (and rustic crafts made from it) to tourists, swearing it treats everything from acne to insect bites.
After walking through the mud fields, we had a tortilla-making tutorial from a woman who supports her daughter and herself by making the tortillas for families in the village. We cooked the fresh tortillas on a hot comal (cast-iron grill over an open fire), then she treated us to a snack of fresh cheese and freshly pressed melon juice, which we enjoyed with our tasty, if misshapen, creations.
We drove two hours south for our two-night stay at Hotel Colonial in Granada. The city sits on the shores of Lake Nicaragua, a massive freshwater lake filled with nearly 400 small islands, including some that boast active volcanoes.
Granada feels more international, with tourists from all over the world, more shopping options, more aggressive vendors in the central square, more upscale hotels, bars and a wider variety of restaurants — including Irish pubs, sushi bars and Starbucksstyle coffee shops where you can get Nicaraguan-grown coffee to go. (We opted to sit and savour ours as the Nicaraguans do.) But even in Granada, stray horses and skinny dogs share the restaurant strip with wobbly travellers who have imbibed too many macuas (rumbased fruity cocktails).
Like cruising in a gondola in Venice, clopping through the cobblestone streets of Granada in a horsedrawn carriage is on the agenda of every tourist and in every tour guide. It’s a charming way to get a better feel for the city and its landmarks, including its historic cemetery. But the horse lover in me couldn’t help feeling sorry for the skinny nags and the pace they had to keep in the Nicaraguan heat.
The four of us got a kick out of the theatrical and informative hands-on chocolate workshop at the quirky Choco Museo. Our animated guide Ishmael walked us through chocolate production from seeing the cacao beans growing in pods on demonstration trees in the centre courtyard of the museo, to roasting, pounding and grinding the beans by hand to a cocoa paste, to tasting cacao the way it was eaten by the Mayans and Incans (bitter!), to ultimately blending it with cocoa butter and designing our own chocolate bars with dried fruit, nuts, coarse salt or whatever mix-ins we preferred. Before we could walk off our chocolate highs, Ishmael led us in downing shots of chocolateflavoured liquor while we chanted “Ariba, abajo, al centro, adentro!” (Up, down, to the middle, inside!)
We indulged our last three nights at Morgan’s Rock, the stunning eco-resort. That part of the country is known for its beach towns, where expat surfers ride waves and families from all over Nicaragua come to vacation. At Morgan’s Rock, smiling staff members greeted us with fresh juice cocktails — rum optional — and led us past the stunning pool down to the private cove dotted with alluring cabanas, hammocks, an open-air spa and yoga studio, and a beach bar. It felt like the howler monkeys might drop in at any moment for a banana smoothie.
We crossed the 45-metre-long suspension bridge to our bungalow nestled on a cliff over the ocean, one of only 15 rooms at Morgan’s Rock. I was delighted when Andrew cautioned me with words I never hear at home: “Watch out for the monkey poop” on the steps to our room. The beautifully designed split-level cabanas sleep up to five people and have large screens to keep out the bugs, large fans to keep the air circulating, a rocking daybed on the balcony where we could relax and listen to the sounds of the waves, and outdoor and indoor showers. The place was a tropical paradise. The Washington Post