Just a Week in Nicaragua

Granada

You are met in the morning on your arrival at Managua airport (or the Costa Rican border at Peñas Blancas) by your experienced English-speaking local guide, who drives you to Granada where you stay 3 nights at a comfortable central hotel.

You explore the colonial city of Grenada with your guide to show you its churches, archaeological museums, quiet side streets and attractive main plaza, ending with a boat ride among the Isletas de Granada.

Mombacho reserve and Masaya at night

Driving north from Granada you visit the cloud forests of Mombacho Reserve. Orchids and bromeliads deck the stunted trees, and you will hear about the reserve’s endemic species, colourful frogs, howler monkeys and white face capuchins. The conservation group that looks after the reserve helps coffee growers use sustainable methods, which you will see at a Rainforest Alliance certified plantation. Schoolchildren are taught about the environment: volunteer pupils work as park rangers and guides, and help in the tree nurseries. After some free time back in Granada, you are driven south at dusk to Masaya Volcano. Parakeets fly in to roost as the sun sets, when you await the exodus of thousands of bats from a lava tube on the volcano’s flank, on their nightly foragings. The intrepid can don hard hats and masks to explore the tube. Up on the crater’s rim, molten magma may be seen glowing deep below. Return to Granada.

Pueblos Blancos craft villages

Today you visit the evocative ‘white villages’ below the massive Masaya volcano. Each village specialises in a particular handicraft–from pottery to hammocks, baskets, leather or woodwork. They are busy and attractive little places. Stay overnight at a lodge with a spectacular view.

León Viejo UNESCO World Heritage Site

A morning to relax in a hammock, by the hotel pool or take an optional spa treatment. After lunch you are driven north along the shores of Lake Managua, where ox carts plough rich soil and mud bricks bake in the sun, to the ruins of Old León, buried by an eruption in 1610 and now an impressive archaeological UNESCO site. Onwards to stay at a comfortable hotel in León for 2 nights.

León

A full day to explore León with your guide, including visits to Subtiava church, Ortiz-Gurdian and Rubén Darío museums and Cathedral. Take your time and wear a hat in its dry season heat. You will also be driven out of town to visit San Jacinto’s hot springs.

Managua

Driving to Managua, you see the sights of this most unusual capital. There is much living history to hear, tales from the 1972 earthquake and the revolution which followed, the National Museum, the modernist cathedral and the Footprints of Achualinca. Stay a night in the city at a comfortable hotel.

Transfer to the airport for the flight home, or flights to the Corn Islands, or the San Juan River, or by road to Pacific beaches.