Getting Around Ometepe
If I had to explain in one word why we absolutely plan on visiting Nicaragua again, that word would be “Ometepe”. The first time I saw it in our itinerary, I thought it sounded spiritual and mysterious, with a note of an ancient ceremony, and a hint of volcanic eruptions. […]
The Coffee Robbery of the Century
If you order a cup of Nicaraguan coffee at home, chances are that the beans used in preparing your drink will be from one of the fincas near Jinotega or Matagalpa. After all, this is a premier region for renowned and much-sought shade-grown Nicaraguan coffee. We were lucky enough to […]
The Shadowy Business of Nicaraguan Coffee
At breakfast, we planned to ask our host, Edgar, if he could give us a tour of his El Soccorro finca or recommend any other coffee tours in the area. But it turned out, we didn’t even have to ask. Edgar was super enthusiastic and excited about these two travelers […]
Coffee: In Love and War
Several years ago, a coffee shop near my work had seasonal Nicaraguan coffee beans for sale. Coffee bags with big letters NICARAGUA featured 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 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 Honduras and Nicaragua along most of its […]
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 […]
