Esteli

Further up the road is La Garnacha, a community consisting mostly of organic farmers plus a factory of some amazingly good cheese. To visit, you need to get off the bus at the La Garnacha sign and walk up their road about 2km. From there, if you are still up for a hike, you can walk to and climb up Cerro Apaguají. It is on private property but open to the public. It's about another 1km of hike from La Garnacha. From the cerro you can see Lake Managua to the south, the chain of volcanos along the Pacific and, on a clear day, part of El Salvador on the other side of the Gulf of Fonseca.

Learn Spanish:

There are several spanish schools around town. when foreign volunteers would come to esteli to help the sandinistas they would often study in esteli. escuela horizonte (http://www.escuelahorizon...) is a respectable one : $220 a week for 3.5 hours of instruction, excursions and homestay with a local family including 3 meals a day at least two of which will be gallo pinto; and beware of the local queso, it's not too popular among foreigners.

Spanish Language Schools in the Esteli area"Hijos del Maiz", Email only"CENAC", 505 2 713 5437; "Los Pipitos Spanish School" , 505 2 713 3830; "Sacuanjoche Spanish School", 505 2 713 7580; "Escuela Horizonte Spanish School", 505 2 713 4117; "Esteli Spanish School", 505 8 686 81Esteli Nicaragua Spanish Language Schools NSLS505-8941-4889 [email protected] Spanish Esteli part of Viva Spanish Programs 505-2270-2339, [email protected]"Spanish Conversation School of Estelí" 505-8836-5943Yorleni or [email protected]

Phone numbers have an extra digit after the area code505; "2" for land lines and "8" for cell phones.

The Esteli region is also home to many fine cigar companies, most of whom will allow a prearranged tour, and some of whom offer special package tours of their factories Drew Estate, in particular.

Here is a rare find. Visit Proyecto de Las Mujeres Ambientalistas these friendly women will show you how they make paper and will actually let you get your hands wet to make some paper yourself. The central core of their work is recycling paper mixed with plant-based waste such as banana stalks, corn husks, coconut shells, onion skins and other vegetable fibres. They make their own unique textured papers by hand. After sun-drying they artfully craft them into beautiful greeting cards and other items which they display and make available for you to acquire to take with you. The Women Recycle Paper Here

They have three organic gardens one for natural herbal medicines donated by Stanford University in 2010, one for organic vegetables and one for indigenous tropical plants that you can stroll through during weekdays. This is an excellent photo opportunity, you can pose in front of beautiful rich colourful murals, painted on the outside walls that tell the history of the project and show the steps of the papermaking process. All this rests in a large, tranquil, park-like setting. Another building has a mural showing the development of the Ekokids from the surrounding barrios, especially Boris Vega. These underprivileged kids are learning good environmental and health practices. If you have the time, they encourage you to spend time volunteering and living with a family in the barrio for a week or month or longer to really learn the culture better. Some volunteers have stayed for a year or more. It is located 4 blocks west of the water tank located in the south end of Mercado de Alfredo Lazo in southwest Estelí.

Posada La Soñada

Visit Miraflor, an agricultural cooperative a couple of hours outside of Esteli in the mountains. There are a number of places at Miraflor where you can stay in cabins or with families, ride horses, meet farmers, looks at orchids, etc. Visit Hospedaje Luna below for more information. Doña Corina's Posada La Soñada is well liked; a bed and 3 meals a day costs US$17 in a family house and US$20 in a cabaña.