Nicaragua – The Quest

MY Famous Coffee - the Impetus for our Whole Adventure

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For 15+ years, one coffee has been my go-to: Trader Joe’s Shade Grown Ground Espresso Blend. It’s been my fuel for sailing thousands of miles. The package says it’s grown on a five-generation farm in the mountainous region of Matagalpa, Nicaragua. So when we arrived in Nica I had one goal – find that farm.

Other than coffee production, we knew less about Nicaragua than we did about El Salvador, which is to say basically nothing. We even had the capital wrong – it’s Managua, not León. The most popular rum in Central America comes from there – Flor de Caña. There’s only one working marina, Puesta del Sol, and it’s pretty isolated. Few cruisers visit, and flying in and out is a logistical headache. We almost skipped it too because both the marina and check-in/out are expensive. But our spirits were high after all our inland travel in ES, and I had a farm to find.

Marina Puesta del Sol (PdS) is sadly a shadow of its former grand self, but the prices remain high, which doesn’t help business. The owner is sweet, and what little staff remain are lovely, but there just isn’t much there there. Resources within walking distance are sparse too. To call it a village would be generous, but you can get the very basics, plus fancy coffee and cinnamon rolls thanks to the small surf outfit full of backpackers.

Prior to setting out, I rang up Mr. Joe and actually spoke with a human! I told her I’d been drinking this coffee daily all the way from California, and now I desperately wanted to visit the farm for my birthday (true). She sighed, deeply, and said she would love to tell me, but double NDAs prevented her from doing so. Even if I did manage to find it, the farm wouldn’t be able to confirm either.

CRAP! I put my AI (Claude) on the case. He found the Selva Negra Eco Farm/Lodge and seemed fairly confident that was the place (mm-hmm). And so we set out on a ~week-long trip, culminating in Coffee Valhalla.

We arranged a rental car from Chinandega, 1 ½ hours away, and stomached the pricey delivery fee. On the ride, we learned our first Nica fun fact – the countrywide speed limit is 50 kph. That’s about 32 mph, and it feels S L O W. Like, school-zone slow, and it’s aggressively enforced. We eventually came to appreciate it after the insane driving in El Salvador, and honestly, if you do get into an accident at that speed, it’s not going to be that bad. It really takes some of the stress out of foreign rental car driving, especially with Waze flagging the police ahead.

Nica is a much bigger country than ES, so places are farther apart, both in miles and in travel time. There’s also very little tourist infrastructure outside the bigger cities, so we started with the popular places. First, León – a city oozing with history as the center of resistance and rebellion.

If you know anything about Nicaragua, you know about the Sandinistas. We spent about two hours in the museum listening to one man talk from Augusto Sandino’s birth in 1895 ALL-THE-WAY through the 1990s. It was as impressive to watch as it was painful to stand through. See below for a CliffsNotes version, but spoiler alert – the United States really effed things up. What is cool, though, is that almost everywhere, the Sandinista flag (red and black, for blood and death) flies next to the Nicaraguan flag – I guess as a remembrance of their uprising against dictatorship and oppression? It’s rather ironic, since the current government is an authoritarian dictatorship and the country ranks as the second most corrupt in Latin America, behind Venezuela. Our otherwise verbose museum historian demonstrated the current aggressive limits on free speech by simply pointing to two portraits on the wall, dryly saying, “These are the co-presidents today,” and gesturing us into the next room.

Sadly, I really felt the oppression and hopelessness in the air and in the people we interacted with. Coming from El Salvador, we found the depression palpable. Sure, people were friendly and could enjoy a beautiful sunset or a delicious tamale, but ask about their lives and you’d get a big sigh and a slow shake of the head. “There is nothing to hope for.” (Well, except for the few who hoped Trump would take over Nicaragua next. My Spanish wasn’t robust enough to muster a retort.)

Beyond history and architecture, León is also famous for its proximity to several volcanoes. Harry and I opted for a sunset hike over sandboarding down the most unstable one in a hazmat suit. We were rewarded with a whole volcano all to ourselves. 

Following León, we did a VIP tour of the Flor de Caña rum distillery. The most impressive part was how they’ve built up an entire community over generations. Employees and their families get healthcare and education paid for, plus access to loans and free childcare. The schools and playgrounds nearby are immaculate. It’s so refreshing to see a company that actually takes care of its people.

Our next stop was Estelí, a town famous for cigars and tobacco, but that’s not why we went. It was just meant to break up the drive to Selva Negra, but we happened upon a special B&B and stayed an extra night for my birthday. Because why would you leave a place where a French chef prepares your included (!) gourmet breakfast, where you’re in your own little cabin overlooking a stream with a private swimming hole, and where, for a few dollars more, said French chef will also prepare a phenomenal dinner? Paysage Caché is a true hidden gem.

Our final stop was the famed Selva Negra, where we splurged on a two-night stay, fully expecting to be sipping my beloved coffee directly from its source. The grounds are so charming! It’s like walking through a Hansel and Gretel storybook – white swans gliding across a lake of lily pads, frogs ribbiting, tropical birds singing in the trees, and howler monkeys howling in the distance. Seriously, check out the website. In truth, I could write a whole blog post praising this place (except the food – overpriced and meh). 

But we came for the coffee. NDAs be damned, our coffee tour guide started rattling off all the US companies they sell to, including Whole Foods. I thought, “Well, this guy is fully disclosing,” and whipped out my TJ’s bag to show him. He examined the packaging carefully, smelled the grounds, whispered something to his trainee that I didn’t catch, then turned and emphatically said, “This is definitely not ours, and I’ll tell you why.” He then listed not only the myriad reasons it wasn’t their coffee, but also why this coffee was a far inferior product. He even threw jabs at dark roast and espresso in general for the rest of the tour. I was crestfallen. I was angry. I was hurt. Afterwards, I drank their included-with-the-tour pot of supposedly superior coffee (it sucked) and licked my wounds.

Harry tried to console me: “Let’s go to a coffee roaster in Matagalpa and ask, we can look for other farms in the area, we can…” But I stopped him. My beloved coffee had inspired a fabulous land tour of Nicaragua, taking us off the beaten path. It led us to world-famous birds and frogs and monkeys. It gave me the best birthday in recent memory. Yes, it was time to give up the quest and just enjoy the journey. (I still spent a few more hours WhatsApping local coffee shops and roasters. I was assured that unless I happened upon someone who knew someone who worked on the farm, it would be impossible to find.)

Back on the boat, we waited a few more days for an iffy weather window to transit the dreaded Papagayos – the area offshore of giant Lake Nicaragua where the winds roar unobstructed from the Caribbean and pummel insolent sailors. We sampled the scrumptious Nica Tamale – purposefully singular, because they’re GIANT and so filling that one is plenty. We also randomly met “the Ice King of Nicaragua” when he and a bunch of buddies returned from a once-in-a-lifetime yellowfin tuna frenzy. We spent that raucous night on the dock eating sushi, drinking Flor de Caña, and solving all the world’s problems.

All in, I also wholeheartedly recommend visiting Nicaragua. The people aren’t as jolly as Salvadorans – with good reason – but they are friendly and welcoming. The dollar goes far in Nica, and driving everywhere at 32 mph has its advantages (you see a lot more, and it’s less stressful). I’d love to go back and spend more time in the mountains. I can see us leaving the boat somewhere like Jiquilisco in El Salvador and spending a couple of months exploring the highlands of both El Salvador and Nicaragua. There’s so much to see!

As for my coffee, I’ll likely never know the precise origin of my favorite brew. But I fully appreciate the lengthy process from bean to my delicious daily cup. I didn’t find the farm. I found Nicaragua instead.

Nicaragua Recent History

• 1893–1909: Zelaya era. Liberal dictator José Santos Zelaya modernized the country and took control of the Mosquito Coast, then was ousted with U.S. backing in 1909.
• 1912–1933: U.S. occupation. Marines were stationed in the country almost continuously. The 1914 Bryan–Chamorro Treaty gave the U.S. canal rights, and Augusto Sandino’s guerrillas fought the Marines until they left in 1933.
• 1934–1979: Somoza dynasty. National Guard chief Anastasio Somoza García had Sandino killed in 1934 and seized power. He and then his sons ruled for four decades with U.S. support.
• 1972–1979: Collapse and revolution. Theft of relief aid after the 1972 Managua earthquake discredited the regime. The 1978 killing of editor Pedro Joaquín Chamorro fueled an uprising, and the Sandinistas (FSLN) took power in July 1979.
• 1980s: Contra War. The U.S. funded Contra rebels and embargoed Nicaragua while Daniel Ortega led the Sandinista government. The result was a devastating war and an economic crisis.
• 1987–1990: Peace and democratic transition. The Esquipulas II accords led to the 1990 election, in which Violeta Chamorro defeated Ortega.
• 1997–2006: Liberal governments. President Arnoldo Alemán was later convicted of corruption. His 1999–2000 power-sharing pact with Ortega lowered the vote threshold needed to win the presidency.
• 2007–2017: Ortega’s return. Ortega won in 2006 with about 38% of the vote. He then consolidated control over the courts and electoral bodies, and term limits were abolished in 2014.
• 2018: Mass protests crushed. Protests that began over pension cuts were met with lethal force, and more than 300 people were killed. This began a sustained crackdown on opponents, the press, NGOs, and the Catholic Church.
• 2021–2025: Full authoritarian turn. Ortega won a 2021 election after jailing rival candidates. In 2023 the government expelled 222 political prisoners and stripped them of citizenship. A 2025 constitutional overhaul made Rosario Murillo “co-president” and placed all branches of government under the presidency.