The Coffee Robbery of the Century
If you order a cup of Nicaraguan coffee in your town, there is a good chance that the beans used in preparing your drink will be from one of the fincas around Jinotega or Matagalpa. After all, this is a premier region for the renowned and much-sought shade-grown Nicaraguan coffee. […]
The Shadowy Business of Nicaraguan Coffee
On our second day at El Soccorro, at breakfast, we planned to ask our host, Edgar, if he could give us a coffee tour of his finca or recommend any other coffee tours in the area. But it turned out, we did not even have to ask. Edgar was super […]
Coffee: In Love and War
Several years ago, a coffee shop by my office had seasonal Nicaraguan coffee beans for sale. Coffee bags with big letters NICARAGUA had an image of a man in a blue shirt holding a basket of ripe coffee cherries. The name of the coffee was “Don Zeledon”, and the coffee […]
Somoto Canyon: The River Runs Through It
Start with Part I here In the last post, I left off just as we just reached the bottom of the Somoto Canyon and, incidentally, the Nicaraguan border with Honduras. As it turns out, the Rio Coco River which runs through Somoto Canyon divides Hondurans and Nicaragua along most of […]
Somoto Canyon: The What, the Why, and the How
We were eating breakfast in our Granada Airbnb, the standard affair of rice, beans, eggs, and plantains, when Victor loudly snickered and put down the book he had been leafing through. It was an old torn-up Nicaraguan guidebook he found on the bookshelf among poetry books by Ruben Dario and […]
Volcano Day: Up We Go
In 2014, Victor was in Panama and his favorite story was visiting Embera village and watching a pet toucan wash himself in a small outdoor sink. Victor turned on the faucet to wash his hands and the bird flew right in and started splashing around and trying to awkwardly fit […]
Volcano Day: Down We Go
The way it usually goes is like this: Victor plans the itinerary, and I book the transportation and accommodations. One thing about Victor is he is meticulous, detail-oriented, and thorough. He doesn’t make mistakes, he doesn’t forget small details, he doesn’t just leave off details from the itinerary for no […]
Skipping Managua. Part II. Leon
One week after visiting Granada, we drove into its long-time rival – Leon. Like Granada, Leon is set in a breathtaking location. Approaching the city from the north, we counted at least six volcanoes on the horizon, all part of the Cordillera de Maribios. As we got closer to the […]
Skipping Managua. Part I. Granada
One of the apparent trends in our travels is that capital cities in Central America do not get a lot of love from us. That’s just a fact. In Guatemala, upon arrival, we left its capital, Guatemala City, by jumping into a taxi and riding away without ever seeing it. […]
A Whole New Life
Start with Part I Here We were walking from Airbnb towards the livestock barns, and I noticed it wasn’t quite as dark as I thought it would be. As we were driving up the mountain, my fear of encroaching darkness made me feel that it was much later in the […]
Nicaragua: A Road Less Traveled
The dusk was setting quickly over Matagalpa, the little red and yellow coffee berries no longer visible on the branches of coffee trees lining the narrow, unpaved road steeply ascending into the mountain. The light of our headlamps jaggedly bounced up and down, as our tiny, rented Toyota Yaris struggled […]