Give the Pacific side a week. Granada is the easiest base, on the lake, with Mombacho above and the crater rim at Masaya half an hour away, best after dark. León, two hours northwest, is the better walking city, with Cerro Negro within an hour. Managua is the airport and bus hub. Then take the ferry from San Jorge to Ometepe for three or four days, and surf at San Juan del Sur. The north adds coffee at Matagalpa and cigars at Estelí. The Corn Islands are a separate trip, flown.
Fun fact
Lake Nicaragua has sharks in it. Bull sharks swim the roughly 190 kilometres up the Río San Juan from the Caribbean, clearing the rapids, and tagging in the 1970s showed the same individuals moving between lake and sea. The lake was long believed to hold its own freshwater species. It does not.
Stereotypes, sorted out
The realityThe two share a border and little else. Nicaragua kept the colonial cities Costa Rica largely lost, its volcanoes are climbed, not viewed from a lodge, and its Caribbean half is Miskito and Creole. The real difference is thinner infrastructure: fewer marked trails, fewer lodges, more asking around.
The realityThe surf coast is one stretch of one region, roughly Popoyo to the Costa Rican border. Build a trip around it and you skip the colonial cities, the lake, the coffee highlands and the whole eastern half. Most people who came for the waves leave saying Ometepe was the better week.
The realityIt is roughly half the national territory, governed as two autonomous regions, and there is no quick road across. Bluefields, Bilwi and the Corn Islands are flights from Managua or a long river and bus combination, and the language, food and music change completely when you land.
The realityOn the Pacific side, yes, and it is voseo Spanish: vos in place of tú, with the stress moved to the end of the verb. On the Caribbean side Kriol English, Miskito and Garifuna are first languages for many people, and Spanish is the second one.
The realityIt runs from a paved road to a hard day out. You can drive to the rim at Masaya and look at an active crater from a railing, walk down Cerro Negro in an afternoon, and take five or six hours up Concepción with a guide, which is the one that beats people.
The realityThe rains from May to October mostly arrive in the afternoon and turn the country green, and July brings the canícula, a dry break of a few weeks in the middle of the wet season. September and October are the two months worth avoiding, and the Caribbean side more than the Pacific.
How to get it right
- Vos, not tú. Nicaraguans use vos with almost everyone their own age or younger, and usted when they want distance or respect. Arriving with textbook tú marks you out instantly, and nobody minds.
- Baseball is the national sport, not football. The league runs in the dry season, the stadium is the cheapest evening in any town that has one, and Dennis Martínez is still the name to drop.
- The calendar matters more than the weather. La Gritería on 7 December, Semana Santa, Managua's Santo Domingo fiestas in the first ten days of August and Palo de Mayo through May in Bluefields each move prices, transport and opening hours.
- Carry small córdoba notes. Dollars are taken in much of the tourist trade and nowhere else, cards thin out fast outside Granada, León and Managua, and change for a large note is a real problem at a market stall.
- Politics is not small talk. Nicaraguans will raise it if they want to; visitors who raise it first put their host at risk. Stay away from demonstrations, and do not photograph police, soldiers or government buildings.
- Poetry is a public thing here. Rubén Darío is on the currency, in the street names and in the school curriculum, and the country talks about its poets the way other countries talk about their footballers.
Famous Nicaraguan faces
Gioconda Belli
Sergio Ramírez
Ernesto Cardenal
Alexis Argüello
Román González
Carlos Mejía Godoy
Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy
Katia Cardenal
Luis Enrique
Bianca Jagger
Armando Morales
Bárbara Carrera
Rubén Darío
Dennis Martínez
Violeta Barrios de Chamorro
Must-try Nicaraguan food
Gallo pinto
Rice and red beans fried with onion and pepper. Breakfast, and beside every other plate.
Vigorón
Boiled yuca, chicharrón and vinegary cabbage on a banana leaf. Granada claims it.
Quesillo
A tortilla around fresh cheese, pickled onion and cream, sold in a bag on the León road.
Sopa de mondongo
Tripe soup with corn, chayote and peppers. The traditional cure for a heavy night.
Coconut bread
Dense, faintly sweet bread from the Caribbean coast and the Corn Islands.
Cajeta
Milk fudge in a dozen forms, sold by the square at market stalls and bus windows.
Nacatamal
Masa with pork, rice and potato, steamed in banana leaf. A Sunday breakfast for two.
Indio viejo
Shredded beef cooked with masa, sour orange and mint into a thick, stew-like porridge.
Baho
Beef, plantain and yuca steamed for hours in banana leaves. A weekend dish for a table.
Fritanga
The evening grill stand: gallo pinto, grilled meat, plantain and cabbage on a leaf.
Güirila
Sweet young-corn tortilla with salty cuajada. Highland road food, best near Matagalpa.
Rondón
The Caribbean coast's coconut-milk stew of fish and root vegetables. Order it ahead.
Tres leches
Sponge soaked in three milks. Several countries claim it; Nicaragua claims it loudest.
Rosquillas
Baked rings of corn masa and cheese from Somoto, sold by the bag for dipping in coffee.
Pinolillo
A cold drink of toasted corn and cacao. Nicaraguans call themselves pinoleros after it.
Macuá
Rum, guava and lemon over ice, chosen as the national cocktail in 2006.
Flor de Caña
Rum distilled at Chichigalpa since 1890, below the San Cristóbal volcano.
Highland coffee
Arabica from Matagalpa and Jinotega, and the reason to detour north from the beach.