Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
If you love coffee, mountains and urbanity, then have your cake and eat it in Matagalpa, a
town where for decades an ever-increasing number of Liberal coffee patriarchs and sub-
sistence Sandinista farmers have rubbed shoulders during city festivals and at market.
Growth has sent Matagalpa sprawling into the foothills, up crumbling streets lined with
shacks and onto graded plateaus laid out in tony subdivisions. Don't worry, the mountains
rise so high and layer so deep, Mother Nature doesn't look the least bit threatened. Just
glance skyward from nearly every city street and you'll see pristine boulder-strewn peaks.
Besides, this kind of rampant growth, commerce and social tension does a city good. It
keeps it moving with enough noise, speed and pointlessness to make you feel like you're
performing a cameo in some caffeine-addled existential comedy. Lucky for you, it's one
with good catering from established restaurants, upstart hipster cafes and local juice bars.
And when you've sipped your last cup of city, head for the hills, where you can hike
through primary forest to gushing waterfalls, pick coffee, explore mineshafts and listen to
ranchero
troubadours jam under a harvest moon.
