Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Managua Highlights
Take in the city while standing in Sandino's shadow on a volcano's rim at
Parque Historico
Nacional Loma de Tiscapa
(
Click here
)
Party hard with Managua's jet set in the clubs along the
Carretera a Masaya (
Click here
)
Check out the crumbling colonial grandeur around the
Plaza de la Revolución (
Click here
)
Follow in the footsteps of Managua's early inhabitants at the
Huellas de Acahualinca
(
Click
Bee-bop your way around the city's cutting-edge
galleries (
Click here
)
Get some down time at one of the lovely beaches at nearby
Pochomil (
Click here
)
Peace out with a day trip to nearby
nature reserves
and
lagoons (
Click here
)
History
A fishing encampment as early as 6000 years ago, Managua has been an important trading
center for at least two millennia. When Spanish chronicler Fernández de Oviedo arrived in
1528, he estimated Managua's population at around 40,000; most of these original inhabit-
ants fled to the Sierritas, the small mountains just south, shortly after the Spanish arrived.
The small town, without even a hospital or school until the 1750s, didn't really achieve any
prominence until 1852, when the seemingly endless civil war between Granada and León
was resolved by placing the capital here.
The clever compromise might have worked out better had a geologist been at hand:
Managua sits atop a network of fault lines that have shaped its history ever since. The late
1800s were rocked by quakes that destroyed the new capital's infrastructure, with churches
and banks crumbling as the ground flowed beneath their feet. In 1931 the epicenter was the
stadium - dozens were killed during a big game. In 1968 a single powerful jolt right be-
neath what's now Metrocentro mall destroyed an entire neighborhood.
And on the evening of December 23, 1972, a series of powerful tremors rocked the city,
culminating in a 6.2 quake that killed 11,000 people and destroyed 53,000 homes. The
blatant siphoning of international relief funds by President Somoza touched off the
Sandinista-led revolution, which was followed by the Contra War, and the city center, in-
cluding the beautiful old cathedral, was never rebuilt. Rather, it was replaced by a crazy
maze of unnamed streets, shacks that turned to shanties that turned to homes and later
