Nicaraguan Odyssey

Managua

You are met on arrival at Managua airport and driven to your characterful hotel in a quiet suburb for a 2 night stay.

After a leisurely start to recover from your journey you meet your guide this morning to begin a tour of the capital, visiting the old downtown area and National Museum, the hilltop Sandino memorial, the new centre with its ultra-modern cathedral, and the evocative ‘Footprints of Achualinca’ made 6,000 years ago.

León

Today you travel to the colonial city of León, visiting the ruins of León Viejo on the way. Your guide will show you León, the intellectual heart of the country, with its colonial churches and impressive cathedral, the Museum of Ortiz-Gurdian, one of the finest contemporary art galleries in Central America, or the Rubén Darío museum, one of the greatest Spanish language poets. You stay 2 nights in the heart of the historic quarter.

San Jacinto, Chorotega and Chinandega

A full day tour learning more about Nicaragua's culture and traditions touring the villages north west of Leon. First stop are the boiling mud fumaroles in the village of San Jacinto before travelling to the 17th century Menor Basilica in the rustic town of El Viejo. This is where a small statuette of La Virgen del Trono the nation's venerated patron saint is found and makes this town the centre for religious pilgrimages. In 1562 the Spanish conquers used this small icon of the vigin Mary to enter the Indian villages, the inhabitants were fascinated by this icon and people came from far afield to admire it. Then you continue to Chinandega, which means ‘place surrounded by cane’. This colourful town with an impressive church is located in one of the most fertile valleys in Central America. Today sugar cane, bananas, sorghum and peanuts grow in its rich volcanic soil and shrimp farms in the estuaries. A century ago Chinadega was known as the 'City of Oranges' then in the 1940s a cotton boom took place here changing the crop. After lunch in Chinandega your day will continue with a visit to a Betania foundation property that host 400 children daily; feel the energy with the primary school kids, visit the educational center for teenagers where they learn and work different techniques such as carpentry, arts, sewing and mechanics; witness how a 4 feet tall child manages to play a Saxophone and a small boy carefully plays a violin. Along with your guide be the guest of the young local guide who will lead you through a great visit at the Chorotega museum which holds 1,500 Indigenous Pre-Columbian artefacts. During your visit you'll have an opportunity to practice your Spanish with the kids or simply enjoy what they have to offer you, a big smile and a lot of hope for their future.

Juan Venado reserve

A morning visit Isla Juan Venado Nature Reserve, a Pacific coastal wetland. After a one hour drive to Las Peñitas beach, you will board your private motor boat for an exciting 2 hours boat ride down the 22km Juan Venado a barrier island 0.5km wide separating the sea from the shore. Behind this sandbar is an important mangrove and the estuary is home to an abundance of life including cayman, crocodiles, iguanas, crustaceans and other marine creatures.The sand spit is also a vital nesting site for Olive Ridley sea turtles (from May to November).The Isla Juan Venado Nature Reserve is uninhabited and there will be time for you to feel enveloped in the solitude and the beauty of nature before your journey back to Leon city. Afternoon transfer partly down the Panamerican Highway to your base for 2 nights near the Laguna de Apoya and Catarina.

Pueblos Blancos craft villages

Today you visit surrounding 'white' villages of Los Pueblos Blancos, plus the Catarina view point overlooking Apoya lagoon. Each village specialises in a special handicraft from pottery to hammocks, baskets, leather, woodwork and some grow flowering plants for sale. There will be some time to relax and simply enjoy the spectacular view from your hilltop lodge.

Granada

After breakfast you are driven down to the splendid city of Granada for some major sightseeing. You visit the Cathedral, the Convent of San Francisco, the Casa de los Leones and Museo de Granada (a private museum within a grand home). There is free time to wander and enjoy the city by yourself. In the late afternoon take a boat tour on the lake through Las Isletas de Granada. You stay in Granada for 3 nights.

Mombacho Reserve and Masaya Volcano at night

Driving north from Granada you visit the cloud forests of Mombacho Reserve. Orchids and bromeliads deck the trees, colourful frogs hide under leaves and howler monkeys peer down at you, and white face capuchins rush about among the treetops. The conservation group that looks after the reserve helps coffee growers adopt sustainable techniques, and you can see how this works at a Rainforest Alliance certified plantation. School kids are taught about ecology, and volunteer for work as park rangers and guides, or to help in tree nurseries. After some free time back in Granada, as dusk approaches you are driven south to Masaya Volcano. Parakeets fly in to roost as the sun sets, and you may pause by the entrance of a lava tube for the exodus of thousands of bats for their nightly foragings. (The intrepid can don hard hats and masks to explore the tube.) You drive up to the rim of the volcano's massive crater, where recent activity has set molten magma bubbling and steaming and glowing in oranges and reds deep below - one of the only places on earth where magma is visible. Return to Granada.

A free day to spend in Granada, exploring the city for yourself or relaxing by your hotel's pool. Time to put aside extra luggage not needed over the next 5 days as there are weight restrictions on your upcoming flights. You will be reunited with it when you return to Managua on Day 15.

Ometepe Island

This morning you are picked up for the drive to San Jorge on the shore of the lake opposite the twin volcanoes of Ometepe Island. The ferry from San Jorge takes you across Lake Nicaragua to Ometepe. You explore the island with your guide, including Laguna Charco Verde, a mysterious pool said to cover an enchanted city, and the hamlet of Altagracia with Nahuatl idols beside the church. You stay 2 nights at the lakeside Villa Paraiso. The rest of the day is free.

Today hike to San Ramon Cascade, the 110m waterfall on Maderas Volcano where it is possible to bathe with the rest of the day is free to relax and unwind enjoying the lodge's super situation midway up the flank of Maderas volcano drinking in the view back across the narrow strip of land to Concepcion volcano. Those in need of a strenuous activity could choose take a guide and climb up through the cloud forest to the volcano's crater and even descend to its crater lake; kayak in the centre of the island or horseback ride.

San Carlos and the Solentiname Archipelago

With a lateish start, you are collected from your hotel for the flight to San Carlos where you are met and taken to the dock for your journey by boat to a lodge on an island in the Solentiname archipelago for a 2 night stay. On the way you call at La Venada Island and visit one of the families of artists whose naïve paintings of fantastical forest scenes have built an international reputation.

Los Guatuzos and Mancarron Island

Early morning, by boat across to the southern shore of Lake Managua then navigate slowly along the Papaturro River to the ecological centre in the Los Guatuzos Wildlife Refuge a RAMSAR wetlands site with 401 species of bird. Here along the narrow river channel - home to the living fossil fish the Gaspar, sawfish, tarpon, caiman and crocodile, you can see hope to see many of the typical waterbirds including egrets, Anhinga, Neotropical Cormorants, Northern Jacana, Little Green Heron, Bare-throated Tiger Heron, Purple Galinule, Mangrove Swallow, Amazon Kingfisher, American Pygmy Kingfisher, Boat-billed Heron even if you are lucky, as we were, Agami Heron and from Nov-mid Apr migrants including the Roseate Spoonbill. Along the river banks one can also observe families of howler monkeys, spider monkeys and white-faced capuchin, turtle, basilic lizards, iguanas, dragon fly and smart Red-winged Blackbirds. You disembark at the rangers station where you can learn about their turtle and caimen conservation projects. Here there is a canopy walk way for aerial observation down upon the massive fronds of palms below. This walkway leads to a choice of forest trails ranging from 1.5hrs to 3 hrs duration. In the forest one can see toe and three-toed sloth, Red-bellied and Yellow Trogon. After lunch at the refuge you travel back along the Papaturro River and across the lake to Mancarron Island in the Solentiname archipelago. Here you can visit the local families who create brightly painted balsa wood carvings of turtles, fish, toucan, armadillo and parrots. This island also has a small archeological museum which swaps pre-Colombian artifacts with the museum on Ometepe. There is a community library and a church currently under restoration which is of great significance to many Nicaraguans. This humble building with dirt floor was where poet and priest Ernesto Carnival held his participative masses with the local peasant population. After his call to arms against the Somoza regime the church was destroyed in reprisal. The walls of the restored church are chearfully adorned with rescued primitivist murals from the original building which were made by the village children in the 1970s. Return to your lodge on Fernando Island to enjoy the sunset.

San Juan River and El Castillo

Today you travel across the Lake to San Carlos river port where all administation in the region occurs, then along the San Juan River to visit the delightful, picturesque small historic waterfront town of El Castillo. The San Juan River has a strategic importance and links the Atlantic Ocean to the wealthy city of Granada via Lake Nicaragua. After a series of raids on Granada by British Pirates the Spanish constructed a fort on the river in 1672. This proved sucessful until 1870 when as a naval lieutenant Horatio Nelson sailed up the river and took the fort under British control, holding it until his forces were decimated by disease and forced to retreat. Since that time volcanic activity in the region has altered the river bed creating rapids at El Castillo beyond which no large vessels can navigate. This remains a strategically important area as the river marks the boundary between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. It is a mainly agricultural region with cows grazing on the Nicaraguan banks while pineapple and orange plantations lie to the south of the Costa Rican bank. You can visit the fort and its museum and wander along the one main street. There is no vehicular traffic, just the occassional handcart being pushed along by a street vendor. You then transfer by boat to your lodge in prime Tarpon fishing territory, between Sabalos and El Castillo with its own private forest reserve. The rest of the afternoon is free to enjoy the facilities at the lodge which include horseriding, birdwatching, kayaking, artesenal fishing or simply relaxing in a hammock and watching life on the river go by.

Managua

Morning free to enjoy the activities at the lodge with its forest and farm trails, perhaps a spot of birding from horseback, before catching the public speed boat back to San Carlos river port. Here you have time for lunch before catching the afternoon flight back to Managua. You will be met on arrival and transferred to the hotel of your choice (picking up any stored luggage). Rest of the day free for relaxation.

You are driven to the airport for your flight home, or onwards to the Corn Islands, for example. Other choices include the beaches of Nicaragua's south Pacific coast.