This year, the annual Debian conference will be held in
Managua, Nicaragua. And I'll
be lucky enough to spend two weeks visiting the country after Debconf,
along with Elisabeth.
Yes, I'll arrive in Nicarague on July 2nd, spend nearly the entire
Debcamp, then Debconf, then we'll spend 16 days around the western
part of Nicaragua, trying to discover the magic of this country.
So, this post is about sharing our plans with my readers. Of course, I
do not know the country so we may have made mistakes and bad choices.
We'll see.
Immediately after Debconf, Elisabeth will join in Managua. She'll be
landing on July 15th. We'll then spend a night in an hotel near the
airport and immediately leave the day after for Matagalpa, in North
Nicaragua. We rented a car for the entire trip indeed, and will be on our own on
wild Nicaragua roads..:-)
We'll spend two nights in Matagalpa. We plan to
visit some coffee or cigar plants, probably have a trip to Lake Apanas
and Jinotega.
Then, we'll have a short road trip to Esteli where we spend again two
nights. We'll be visiting a coffee growing place (beneficio seco de
caf ). A full day visit is planned at Miraflor natural reserve to enjoy te
beauties of hundreds orchids and some local natural marvels.
The next move will be to Leon, where we'll spend 4 nights, visiting a
cigar factory (tabacaleras de puros?) on the way, as well as San
Jacinto, a place with hydrothermal sources and "Hervideros" (geysers).
Four nights in Leon leaves
plenty of time for several activities *and* enjoying the colonial
city. We'll have a full day at Juan Venado Island reserve with boat
trip from Las Penitas (on a fisherman's boat from what the travel agency mentioned),
then another full day climbing on the Cerro Negro volcano. Indeed, I
was originally considering climbing the Momotombo, but our travel
agency warned about the high difficulty. I would have loved that
myself but maybe not the two of us...and this is a trip for
both of us! So, we played the safe option..:-)
After these 4 nights in Leon, we'll move to Granada for 3 nights,
through Leon Viejo (the former site of Leon).
From Granada, one
day will there be used for a visit in the Masaya National Park and see
the beauties of Masaya volcano (this is indeed something that could be
done for Debconf day trip, IMHO, as it doesn't seem that far from
Managua). Another day will be spent to Las
Isletas on lake Nicaragua and others visiting the colonial city of
Granada. Or, of course, whatever things we don't even known about
now..:-)
Then we'll move to what I personnally consider the peak of the trip: 3
nights on Ometepe island on lake Nicaragua. Just check Wikipedia to
see why Ometepe is, in my opinion, THE place to go in Nicaragua. Here, I'll have
my volcano..:-). Indeed, Elizabeth "authorized" me to book a local
guide and then climb Concepcion Volcan, if the weather allows for it.
1600m height, that doesn' seem to be a big issue....except when
starting from a little bit above sea level and are climbing a volcano
that looks like s postcard volcano : nearly a perfect cone shape.
So, let's cross fingers for having good weather that day. I promise
myself I'll record the GPS track of that one and, even if I'll
probably be walking most of the climbing (except if I have a very
trained guide...), I'll add it to my run tracks!
We might also be going to climb Ometepe's other volcano (Maderas) the day after
so that Elizabeth also enjoys these beauties. There also seems to be
great places around Maderas such as San Ramon Cascade, Finca el
Porvenir, etc.
Then, at the end of all this, it will be time to come back to Managua
in the final day and fly back to Paris in the early morning of July 31st.
All over, I'll be in Nicaragua from July 2nd until July 31st! Full
month away, yay! Hurrah for the crazy number of holidays those lazy
French people have..:-)
During this trip, we might find it interesting some local geeks (not
too many as Elizabeth is not that deeply interested in beersigning!)
and share a few nice things in local places which are only known by
locals.
In case you're interested, out (very clever) travel agency is named
Nicaragua Adventures and they're definitely worth contacting if you
want to travel around .ni, particularly if we prefer booking things in
advance as we do. They speak Spanish (of course!), English and French.
They're very responsive to e-mail as well.