Central America Archives - Wandering North

Nicaragua

Two Days in Colourful Granada

Leaving Estelí for Granada

I left Estelí, Nicaragua early on Friday morning. I left the way I came, in a private care instead of on the bus. Friday was a working day for me, and I couldn’t afford to spend half of it in transit, so I hired a driver. The trip took about 2.5 hours. Not a bargain, price-wise, but worth it

Arriving in Granada, I was immediately charmed. This was the colourful city I’d seen in pictures, and it was the city in which I had planned to spend my entire week, before the lure of cigars and tobacco farms took me to Estelí. We arrived in Granada at about 8:00 AM. I would leave two days later. Two days was enough time in Granada.

*main square as seen from my hostel window*

The Poshest of Hostels

I was staying at the Selina Hostel (since changed its name to Socialtel Granada); it was an absolute delight. It’s one of those fancy hostels that feels more like a hotel than than it does just a regular hostel (a poshtel). It is pricier, but you can’t argue with the quality. I had booked a private room, and it was gorgeous. The common areas were full of people hanging out, drinking smoothies and beer, planning day trips to volcanoes, and chit chatting in aesthetically appealing surroundings. As a side note, I did plan to do a day trip to a volcano but it just wasn’t happening while I was there due to volcano activity so I just hung out in the town.

I spent Friday morning sitting on the patio in front of the hostel having a cigar and working on my laptop. With work done, I went out to explore for the weekend.

Wandering Granada

Grenada is one of those places that doesn’t really have tourist attractions per se, it’s really that the city itself is the attraction. It is a gorgeous Spanish colonial town with the oldest architecture dating back nearly 500 years. The buildings are brightly painted, and the streets are cobblestoned. In the centre is a leafy square presided over by a tall bright yellow church.

I know, it’s a lot of photos, but its is just so pretty

It has an active street life, with markets, people playing dominoes, food and drink vendors, add a selection of horses and donkeys.

The central market was an explosion of colours, smells, and fruity goodness.

It is an ideal place for wandering with no destination.

The only downside to Grenada was that it was blisteringly hot and humid. It was hot in Estelí but in a comfortable sort of way. It was so hot when I was in Granada in February that at certain points I felt like I couldn’t see. No matter, the city had an ample assortment of charming cafes and breezy courtyards that I could sit in to take respite from the heat and drink a refreshing beverage or a coffee.

And that’s basically what I did in Granada: I wandered around, I looked at buildings, I took pictures, and I had and I had tasty (non-alcoholic) beverages.

*smoothies, coffee, and a virgin passion fruit colada*

One of the great things about being Granada was that there was a variety of food. It reminded me a lot of Antigua, Guatemala in the sense that it really does cater to tourists and so it has charming cafes with good assortments of vegetarian food. I was in heaven I was able to have vegetarian dishes and nice salads without getting sick. The downside of this was Granada is not particularly cheap. You’re going to pay almost Canadian prices for the pleasures of those lovely cafes. But I was fine with it.

Smoking Cigars in Granada

Of course I smoked cigars. There was one small cigar factory in Granada: Dona Elba. It’s tiny, as their main factory is in Estelí, but there were people in there rolling cigars and cigars were for sale. I made a point of going there and tried a couple of their locally rolled cigars, each of which was only OK. I sat in a rocking chair in their shop area and smoked this very unfortunately named cigar when I was joined by the tired wife of a cigar curious tourist who sat down to talk to me. It was one of those conversations that started normal but then took a turn when this woman, who was from America, began telling me about her COVID conspiracy theories and how Muslims are ruining Europe. Awkward. I obviously don’t agree with her theories and there’s just no point in debating some people. At that point I miss being in Estelí where almost no one spoke English.

*A nice little factory with unremarkable (and one unfortunately named) cigars*

One other note on cigars, don’t buy any here unless it is from a proper cigars store (and even then be careful); Granada was full of egregious fake cigars – not just fake Cubans, but fake non-Cubans, like Padron, Fuente. Nasty looking things, some with beetle holes.

In the evenings I sat outside enjoying the less hot air and smoking cigars, well the people from the nearby hostels marauded about in search of drinks.

It was all perfectly pleasant and was an excellent end to my time in Nicaragua.

Heading Home

I flew home via Mexico City where I had a ten-hour overnight layover. Normally, when flying through Mexico City I’ll go into the city, but I had no desire to go in the middle of the night sleep couple hours and come back to the airport, so I booked a ‘room’ at a little pod hostel just outside of the airport. (izZzleep.) Literally outside the door of the airport and up a flight of stairs. It was my first time staying in one of these little space age pods and I loved it. Great use of my time and money.

Nicaragua was a success I felt fulfilled and rejuvenated.

My next trip would keep me in the Americas: a short jaunt to southern California.

Nicaragua

At Home with Plasencia Cigars in Estelí, Nicaragua

After Las Villas and Rocky Patel, my next cigar factory visit was Plasencia. I was delighted. I had only learned of Plasencia the previous year when I was working in Antigua, Guatemala. The proprietors of the best lounge in Antigua (Antigua Cigars) told me the story of the Plasencia family and introduced me to their cigars. They have been in regular rotation for me ever since.

The Plasencia family started out in the industry in the mid 1800s as tobacco farmers in Cuba after the Plasencia patriarch immigrated there from the Canary Islands. They left during he revolution in the early 1960s and moved their operation to Nicaragua. In the 1970s the turbulence in Nicaragua caused them to move to Honduras where they started making cigars for other brands. In the 1990s they returned to Nicaragua and became one the of the most famous and prolific growers and producers (still for other grands) of the cigars outside of Cuba. In 2017, the family decided to start producing cigars under their own name and the Plasencia brand of cigars was born. They are excellent cigars, the Alma Fuerte being my favourite.

I love how they have been in the business for generations and how they have innovated to grow certified organic tobacco and developed way to grow the crops with less water. They are committed to environmental practices. I should say here that no was is paying or asking me to write this. I’m just a fan.

So I was delighted when I was invited to tour the Plasencia factory in Estelí.

I walked to the factory from my hotel. Long and hot, but manageable. I didn’t want to deal with taxis.

I entered the impressive yellow building and was met with my host.

He took me on a tour of the factory. I won’t go through the steps involved or how this experience enlivened my already deep-rooted passion for cigars, as I have done that in the Las Villas and Rocky Patel posts. I was walked through the same, incredible process of cigar fermentation, rolling, aging, testing, and finishing. All by hand, as it has been done for centuries.

The family’s history is told in a series of photos and the story displayed on a wall after entering the building.

A few things surprised me about Plasencia. It isn’t just a company where these people work; they pride themselves on being a responsible employer. (Take note, corporations.) They pay a good wage, they provide health care onsite, they provide free pre-school for the children of workers, they grow food and use it to supply meals to their workers…it was apparent that this is a company that cares. I usually cringe when I hear an employer calling its workplace a family, but there was a true sense of that here. The walls were lined with quotes from writers and thinkers like Emerson and there were displays about the Plasencia baseball team and about the importance of mental health. It was impressive, and not what I expected. They even make a point of employing blind people in certain jobs where the task can be done by touch. I came in as a fan of the cigars and left as a fan of that and their corporate culture.

The tour ended in their onsite cigar lounge / café / bar, where I had a coffee and cigars and continued to chat with my host.

I left, with a nice gift bag, and my host insisted on driving my back to my hotel. (He thought it was crazy I had walked.) When he turned on his truck, 1980s Madonna blasted from the speakers. “The radio?” I asked curiously. “No. It is a CD,” he replied and said how much he liked Madonna. Full of surprises, down to the final moments.

These three cigar factory visits were incredible. I felt even more zealous about this thing that I love and that has, truly, shaped so much of my life. It was also a reminder of the kindness and generosity of cigar people and how, despite being strangers, we connect over this shared passion.

What a great way to end my week in Estelí. The next day I would leave Estelí for Granada.

Nicaragua

Farm to Factory with Rocky Patel

During my week in Estelí, Nicaragua, and the day after my visit to the Las Villas cigar factory I had the privilege of visiting the Rocky Patel farm and factory.

Rocky Patel is a brand started in the mid 90s by a Hollywood lawyer named Rakesh “Rocky” Patel who became passionate about cigars and sold his law practice to start a cigar company. This is a story that is close to my heart. Today Rocky Patel is one of the best known non Cuban brands in the world.

Factory

The people at Rocky Patel were unbelievably generous with their time. I was met by a representative of the company, a girl named Gissell who spoke excellent English, and she took me on a tour of the factory. She walked me through the entire process from rolling the cigars to aging them, banding to boxing them. I was familiar with the process, and it was fresh in my mind for having visited the factory yesterday, but I appreciated seeing how the Rocky Patel factory operates.

It was a big operation, but like all cigar factories, things are pretty simple. It’s a room with long wooden tables, divided into sections, kind of like cubicles in a library, and a person sits at each one and does their job. There’s the person who bunches the tobacco, creating the blend, the person who rolls the tobacco, the person who takes the cigars and puts them into a wooden cigar press to help them hold their shape, the person who applies the wrapper (which is the outside leaf), and the person who takes each cigar and puts it into a little machine that puffs air through it to check to see if it is rolled correctly. If the cigar is rolled too tight you can’t smoke it easily, and if the cigar is rolled to loosely it burns too quickly and too hot. The man who does the testing keeps track of whose cigars or not meeting the standard.

rollers

We also visited the room where women de-vein the tobacco leaves, the and the room where men are sorting the cigar leaves into bundles to make the blends, weighing them, and keeping the records. Everything is done by hand. Pen and paper.

The factories are warm. There are fans but you can’t have air conditioning blowing on the tobacco. Tobacco is a sensitive product that needs to be kept warm, but not too warm; and humid but not too humid.

The atmosphere of the room is nice. People seem to be having a good time, or as much as you can while working. A lot of them have headphones in but others are chatting with each other as they roll cigars, but they are working quickly. A perfect marriage of speed and precision is desirable. I tried rolling a cigar once and I know first-hand that it is not as easy as they make it look.

After the cigars are rolled, they are aged in bundles on shelves for anywhere from a few months to up to a year before they are boxed and sold.

When it is time for the cigars to be boxed, there is someone whose job it is to separate the cigars into different shades of brown, to ensure that when you buy a box of cigars there is a uniform colour of the cigars in the box. This is purely for aesthetics. The lighter coloured cigars go with the lighter coloured cigars and the darker with the darker coloured cigars. In Cuba, it is said that they separate the cigars into 40 different shades of brown. I don’t know if that’s accurate or if it’s true in Estelí, but the man who was doing the colour organizing certainly had a lot of different shades of brown on the table in front of him.

The cigars are banded, again, by hand, and put into boxes for distribution and sale.

Just as with the day before, I felt amazed by the level of work that goes into making each cigar and how little it has changed over the centuries.

When the tour of the factory was finished, we were joined by Luis, a former lawyer himself, and we took a drive out to the farm.

Farm

This was a new experience for me. I had visited a tobacco farm in Cuba, but at the time the plants had been harvested so it wasn’t much to see. Being at the Rocky Patel farm in Estelí, I was giddy with excitement. It was stunning. The header image on this post is a view of the field. Bright green plants against a clear blue sky. It looked like heaven.

I wandered to the fields and took pictures and gently caressed leaves like a real weirdo.

Another thing I hadn’t seen before, was tobacco flowers. These are the flowers that grow on the tobacco plant. They’re pink! I had no idea.

Right near the fields, were large barns where the tobacco goes after it’s harvested.

Once the leaves are harvested, they go into the barn where they are hung on wooden rods high up into the barns rafters. When they’re hung up, they’re green and as they dry, they turn brown. The racks of leaves are rotated to ensure that they all get uniform humidity and exposure. As with every other aspect of cigar production, this is all done by hand. Women string the tobacco leaves into long garlands; men take the tobacco leaf garlands up into the rafters and hang them over the wooden beams. The barn smells incredible.

They told me that once a year they have fancy dinners in the barn where they bring in a large table and eat and drink surrounded by tobacco. I tried unsuccessfully to wrangle an invitation.

We then visited the building where the tobacco was put into, effectively, big piles, where it ferments for up to a year. The tobacco must be kept at a very stable state of humidity and temperature, and it is monitored constantly.

Finally, and a bit out of sequence, we visited the greenhouses where the little tobacco seedlings start their lives. Future cigars. I have never been so excited to visit a nursery.

The people at Rocky Patel were so wonderful. Explaining to me the entire process, tolerating my ceaseless enthusiasm, and not laughing too hard at me when I tripped walking in the field and landed in a muddy creek. At the end of the visit, they gave me a small gift box with an assortment of their cigars. There’s no people like cigar people.

*me, Gissell, and Luis. I didn’t get the pink shirt memo*.

I felt so lucky to have been able to visit these two factories. An at the time that I visited Rocky Patel I thought that it would be the second of two factory visits that I would make; but that afternoon I got an e-mail arranging for me to visit Plasencia the next day, which would be my final day in Estelí.

Nicaragua

Visiting Las Villas Cigar Factory in Estelí

In was in Estelí, Nicaragua remote working for a week and, as it is the cigar production centre of Nicaragua, I had reached out (with the help of a Spanish speaking colleague) to some factories to arrange tours to Las Villas, Rocky Patel, and Plasencia. This led to one of the more unique and personal experiences I have had, combining two of my passions: travel and cigars.

The first of the factories that I visited in Estelí was Las Villas. This wasn’t a factory or brand that I was familiar with, but they were the first to extend an invitation so happily accepted.

I walked there from my hotel. It took a little less than half an hour but the heat made it feel longer. Along the walk I passed other buildings that had cigar logos on the outside. These were not ones that I was familiar with and appeared to be small operations. Occasionally I walked past a building that had no signage outside whatsoever but I could hear voices and smell tobacco through the cracks in the windows. I don’t mean that I could smell smoke from tobacco I meant that I could smell raw tobacco, and it was apparent to me that these were also small rolling operations. There are entire streets in Estelí that smell like tobacco, or like heaven depending on your perspective.

*other, random factories passed en route*

I walked down some unpaved back roads in a residential neighbourhood and passed a couple of donkeys when I found my destination. Behind the security gate was a small, new-looking building containing the cigar factory.

I was met by a fellow who gave me a tour of the factory, I think because his English was the best of the people on staff. And I feel like a jerk because I wrote down the names of the people that I met but I lost the paper and so I don’t remember his name, but this was him and me in the picture enjoying a cigar.

He took me through the Las Villas where people were fermenting tobacco, rolling cigars, bundling and aging them. This glimpse into cigar production was truly fascinating. I had visited factories previously in Miami and Cuba, but it was still thrilling to see. Something about cigars that not many people realize unless you know cigars is how many steps it takes to make a cigar from when you plant the seed to when you box them up. They go through a long and intricate process of growing, harvesting, aging, fermenting, sorting, rolling, testing, aging some more, banding, and boxing. It is said that a cigar passes through 200 hands on its way to being ready to smoke. It’s one of those rare items that still, today, is made entirely by hand. I find it kind of moving to see all of these people handcrafting this thing that I enjoy so much. I don’t think I take it for granted, but it is very special to see first hand all of the effort that goes into a cigar.

My guide showed me around the factory and took me into the rooms where they were aging tobacco. He gave me a cigar to sample which was excellent (and thankfully it was excellent, because I had never had these cigars before and it would have been an awkward experience if the cigars were bad).

Cigars in various forms. The ones in the middle at the ‘By the Book’.
The little oily pigtail ones on the end are a custom roll for a buyer.

After the tour I was taken into the office of the owner of the company and his brother. Guillermo Pena Jr. Is the owner of Las Villas and of course I forget his brother’s name because I lost the little piece of paper where I wrote it down. The brother didn’t speak English, but Guillermo did. He told me the story of how he and his brother grew up in Cuba and worked as cigar rollers there before escaping to Miami in the early 2000s. They started working initially at cigar factories in Miami before going out on their own to create their own cigars. They eventually created a factory in Estelí, Nicaragua and started rolling cigars for other brands as well as creating their own. They started with eight rollers and today they have over 200. While I was there, I tried a Las Villas cigar called By The Book, which came in a cigar box that looked like a book. It was excellent. Full bodied, leathery, earthy, with a hint of natural sweetness, and a perfect construction in an oily wrapper. It was a truly amazing experience to be sitting in this office on the leather sofa in the middle of a cigar factory in the middle of Nicaragua talking about cigars with these men. bonded over our mutual passion.

I left feeling elated. It was such a unique experience – but it was only the first of three.

The next day I would visit Rocky Patel and tour both the farm and factory.

Nicaragua

Tobacco Town: A Week in Estelí, Nicaragua

Workation

Anyone who’s followed me or knows me in person knows that I love cigars. I won’t go into my personal history with cigars, which has been a life-changing passion going back to about 1997; that is another story for a different blog. When I had an opportunity to do a one week ‘workation’ in 2024, it was my passion for the leaf that took me to Nicaragua. For the last couple of years, I can take one week per year and work remotely in addition to my annual paid time off. The first year I went to Guatemala, and this (second) time to Nicaragua. It’s essential that I do the workation in a time zone that roughly lines up with Vancouver’s. I’ll probably explore most of Central America this way.

But where in Nicaragua? Granada was the obvious choice, as it is so charming, but I decided to go to a less picturesque destination: Estelí.

Estelí is not a tourist destination; It is a regular working town in central Nicaragua that is famous for growing some of the best tobacco in Central America. At least half of the population of Estelí works in the cigar industry in one way or another. I couldn’t get an accurate count on how many cigar farms or factories there were in the area. I managed to find about 30 online but I was told that there was probably twice as many.

Estelí seemed like a good choice. It’s famous for producing something that I love and, aside from that, it doesn’t really have any other sights or attractions that would distract me from my work. (There are some nearby hikes, but that’s it.)

Arrival in Nicaragua

I flew into Managua and then had to make my way to Estelí. Managua is the closest airport to Estelí and the only way there is by vehicle. There are buses, but they’re slow. I was arriving in Estelí from Vancouver via Mexico City, where I had spent the night, so by the time I would arrive in Nicaragua it would be Saturday afternoon and I wanted to arrive in Estelí before it got dark. So I arranged for a car.

I found a driver online – Mr. Ow of Mr Ow Nica Travel – who offers driving services around the country and asked him if he would make this drive for me. He said he would. I wholly recommend him he was an excellent driver and very professional. It was also nice to make the drive from Managua to Estelí in a car so that I could enjoy the scenery as well as ask Mr. Ow about life in Nicaragua. It wasn’t a super picturesque drive, but it was nice to see some fields of green and donkeys pulling carts.

Growing up, the only time I heard anything about Nicaragua was on the news, and it was always violence and political upheaval, and American-born news reporters with no Spanish accent suddenly pronouncing the name Nicaragua as though they were raised in the heart of Managua. (“Nee-Ka-rrrá-Gua”)

While it’s a bit of a stereotype from Nicaragua it’s also true that it was violent and had political upheaval and lots of American political meddling. The country was under a series of dictatorships and revolutions from the late 1930s until the 90s (Somoza, Sandinistas, Contras), with a war and a devastating earthquake on top of it all. In the 1990s, when it started to re-establish itself as a stable state, it was decimated by terrible hurricanes. It’s only really since about the mid 2000s that it’s got on its feet. Or did it?

While there isn’t any active war, Nicaragua struggles with democracy and dictatorships to this day. Political participation is limited, and the current president has been in power for 23 years across two different periods. During his second period, he removed term limits from the constitution and recently made his wife vice president. When I am visiting countries with tricky governments, I try not to ask people too much about the local politics for fear that they or I get in trouble. To the extent that locals talked about politics with me on this trip they didn’t seem happy with the system and spoke about it in hushed tones.

Nicaragua is one of the safer countries in Central America, but it’s still not considered safe. I felt completely safe the entire time that I was there, but I don’t know if that’s a universal experience.

Estelí

We got to Estelí, it also wasn’t that picturesque, but it would be my home for the next week.

Estelí has a population of approximately 120,000. I find that shocking because it felt like a small town, but I gather that I was staying in the centre and that there is more of the city perhaps spread out. The area that I stayed in felt old-ish. There were some cobblestone-type streets and single-story colonial buildings painted in bright colours and at least one square with an old churches.

It looks lovely right? And it was pretty. Not as pretty as Antigua or Granada, but it did have many of the elements of an attractive Central American colonial town. What it didn’t have was things catering to tourists. On one hand this was great; I felt like Estelí was a completely authentic experience. On the other hand, it wasn’t an easy place to spend a week in. Very few people spoke English, so I had to rely on my rudimentary Spanish. Finding vegetarian food was almost impossible. Most nights I would ask people to make me a bean and vegetable burrito. And one night I just had a virgin piña colada and a cigar for dinner. There wasn’t a plethora of cute little cafes with free Wi-Fi like you would have in a more touristy place like Antigua, but there were some. There was one very picturesque little cafe (Coffee Lovers Estelí) that did have free Wi-Fi and wasn’t too far from my hotel and there was a place selling smoothies and there were and there were one or two patios to sit on.

Sometimes when I drive through countries from one destination to another I will pass by a town or small city of no particular note and I’ll wonder what life is like in a place like that; just a regular town with no real attractions. Estelí was that experience. People got up and they went to work and they hung out in the park in the evening when it was hot and then they went home. Men walked around wearing cowboy hats and cowboy boots and jeans and nobody seemed particularly interested in displaying the sights or history of their town. Every morning, a siren went off at about 5:00 AM signalling to people that it is time to start work. I used this as my signal that I should do likewise.

I stayed the Hotel Los Arcos, which is probably the nicest hotel in the centre of the city and I booked myself into the biggest room. I figured, since I’m going to be there doing work, I may as well have some space. It wasn’t ideal for work, lacking any sort of a desk or table. I spent most of my working days sitting on a wooden bench working at a coffee table in the common areas, smoking cigars. That was great, cigar-wise. The place was very cigar friendly. And while the staff didn’t speak a word of English, they were very kind and we exchanged small conversations.

*My hotel and, on the right, where I worked most days*

I did get violently ill for about out two days during my time in Estelí following an attempt to eat a salad ordered from a takeout window at a taco shop. I think that was a mistake. And that put a bit of a damper on things, but I was still able to tend to my work and enjoy my cigars.

And the cigar is really where the highlight of Estelí. I could smoke anywhere, which was a treat, but more importantly I had arranged to visit some farms and factories while I was there. It is possible to arrange for a tour in some cases to visit certain farms and factories there, but they generally don’t do them for individuals. Fortunately, my law firm is one of the sponsors of the Caribbean Cigar Celebration, an annual cigar event in Vancouver, and I used that as my way two reach out to these places. Only three factories got back to me, but that was enough. While I was there, I visited Las Villas, Rocky Patel, and Plasencia. I know that if you don’t know anything about cigars these names won’t mean anything to you, and that’s okay. I will write separate posts about these visits so they’re easy for people to skip if they’re not interested. But for me it was thrilling and one of the more unique trips that I’ve had.

My days in Estelí, apart from visiting farms and factories, were spent with a morning stroll, an eight or so hours of work, and an evening out for dinner, another walk, and a cigar, seeing who I could meet and what I could see along the way. Not exciting, but pleasant.

Would I recommend that people go to Estelí? Not unless you are a huge cigar fan and very excited to learn more about the process of growing cultivating and rolling cigars. Otherwise carry on to Granada or one of the other more touristy regions of Nicaragua.

Moving On

I did go to Grenada on my last weekend, and it was excellent and provided me with all the touristy comforts that Estelí lacked, but the highlight was visiting those tobacco farms and cigar factories, which reaffirmed and revitalized my passion for cigars.

Choose your own adventure! Want to Read about my visits to Las Villas, Rocky Patel, and Plasencia? Click your choice. Want to jump ahead to picturesque Granada? Click here.

Central America / Caribbean Guatemala North America

The Ruins at Tikal

I had gone to Guatemala for a week or so of work and was flying home on a Sunday, which meant I had one Saturday to do with as I pleased. There was no way I was leaving Guatemala without seeing the Mayan complex of Tikal. Guatemala has a wealth of beautiful sights to choose from and I knew I was only going to see Antigua and Tikal. The photos of Tikal have always looked so mystical: tall pyramids rising out of the jungle. I love that stuff (who doesn’t?) whether it is Machu Pichu or Abu Simbel, or Tikal, there is the allure of a lost civilization leaving exquisite remnants and just a bit of a feeling like you are Indiana Jones. It’s irresistible.

So I was determined to make it work.

I don’t recommend going from Antigua or even Guatemala City to Tikal for the day. It is a long day and while I was happy with the time I spent at Tikal, it meant not getting to spend any time in the delightful looking town of Flores, which is the gateway to Tikal. But it IS possible to do it as a day trip if you have transportation at both ends of the flight to Tikal and don’t mind starting at about 2:30am. The logistics of handling the transportation on my own seemed daunting, so I just booked a day tour, which I felt was the best option.

I was picked up and driven to Guatemala City where we gathered the others, maybe 8 of us in total. We flew in a small twin propellor plane for about an hour to Flores where we were picked up by our guide and driven to the Tikal national park.

Tikal was built between about 200 and 900 AD by the Mayans (although the site of Tikal was settled about 1000 years prior) but it was not discovered, covered by jungle, until the 1840s. It seems impossible that it could go unnoticed for so long, but even now, some of the temples are still covered by vegetation and it was only when our guide pointed them out that we knew they were there. They just looked like green hills.

It was great, walking through the trees, monkeys overhead, and then seeing a pyramid peak peeking out above the trees, or entering a clearing with one just sitting there. It was lovely. And we got to climb up many of them, which I always like, even if sometimes that seems like a better idea going up than coming down.

I don’t feel like I learned a lot on this tour about the civilization itself, but I was very happy to have a guide take us around and the people on the tour were all nice and good company. That said, no one in the group had seen the very enjoyable horror movie “The Ruins”, which was so clearly on point; it was disappointing.

(“The Ruins” is good travel horror movie where a bunch of young backpackers visit a pyramid in the middle of the jungle in Central America, only to find that the vines covering the pyramid are sentient and sacrificing the humans that invade the pyramid. I mean, come on, it’s the same thing. They may as well be selling DVDs of it at the Tikal gift shop. [There is no Tikal gift shop.]) I feel like often obvious horror movie references go unappreciated in places around the world. Like the Paris catacombs and “As Above So Below”, or the Amazon and “Cannibal Holocaust”, or the Australian outback and “Wolf Creek”, or any hostel in Eastern Europe and…”Hostel”. I could go on, but won’t.) It’s almost like other adults don’t spend all their free time at home watching trash.

Horror movie digression aside, Tikal did not disappoint. It was incredible. I would say that it was a little less impressive than Machu Pichu or Abu Simbel. Better than Teohuacan. Maybe similar in enjoyment to Borobodour. But there is not requirement to rank these places. This isn’t that kind of blog. All these places are wonderful and worth seeing.

Tikal was great. I’m glad I went. It was the perfect way to end my time in Guatemala.

Central America / Caribbean Guatemala North America

Smoking Cigars in Antigua

Anyone who knows me or reads this blog with any regularity knows that i love smoking cigars. Pretty much daily whether at home or away. It’s just one of my favourite things. This means that when i travel anywhere, part of my travel planning is researching where I can smoke and if there are cigar lounges and stores. Antigua, Guatemala is an unusual place in this regard.

Guatemala is in the part of the world where tobacco is grown and cigars are rolled, but, unlike many of its neighbours, Guatemala doesn’t really have a cigar industry. Perhaps connected to that, smoking (at least in Antigua) is mostly not allowed. Smoking is not allowed indoors and not in any outdoor courtyard. (Harumph)

Antigua has all of these charming cafes and restaurants, but, due to the style of the buildings, the outdoor areas are all courtyards (super lovely ones), which means they are smoke free. It was a bit disappointing, however, i could smoke on the patio of my air bnb and no one complained when i smoked on benches in parks, – but there were even better options.

If you like cigars and are in Antigua, your home away from home will be Antigua Cigars. It is this perfect cigar store/lounge in the historic centre of Antigua. It has a small humidor with a limited selection of Cubans and a selection of excellent non-Cubans, including their great house brand and a wide array of Plasencia cigars, which I enjoyed.

Attached to the store is a small and inviting lounge with just the right decor and music and, best of all, great people. (I swear to god, they aren’t paying me; i was just so happy there.) The owners are lovely people, a husband and wife, from Canada, and they have lived in Antigua for years. Full of great stories and hospitality. The other clientele at the lounge were mostly expats/immigrants and every single one of them were delightful company. I went there maybe 4 or 5 times in my 8 days there and felt like I had friends.

*My arm is complete again, at Antigua Cigars*

The owners at Antigua Cigars also let me in on two places that allowed smoking: one is the rooftop patio of an Irish pub called The Snug. It has a casual and fun vibe and excellent views of the volcanos and no one had an issue with my cigars.

The other place is called something like Primavera and it is a restaurant maybe two blocks from Antigua Cigars. It has a romantic courtyard with a fire and fairy lights and cozy nooks. It also had excellent food. I went twice and ate and drank more than i needed so i could keep enjoying the ambiance, which also included live music.

There is another cigar store/lounge: Cigar Boutique and Lounge Antigua. It is just half a block down from the yellow arch towards the end of the street. It has a very well stocked humidor of Cuban cigars and a nice room of leather chairs. It didn’t seem to have a crown of regulars, but was a nice place to smoke. I’m not totally sure about the quality of the cigars though. I bought four there; two were excellent, and two smoked so badly i would have bet they were counterfeit (but maybe they were just duds), and on my second visit, i found a box in the humidor that had cigars riddled with beetle holes. So i don’t think i would buy a lot of cigars there, but i would still visit and buy a cigar and use then space.

*At the Cigar Boutique and Lounge near the Yellow Arch. That Bolivar was excellent.*

I also spied a lot of egregious counterfeit Cohibas at the local crafts market. Don’t be fooled.

I smoked an obscene amount of cigars in Antigua, even if it was not as open as i might have liked. And i brought back a couple bundles of the house brand cigars from Antigua Cigars, which I am still enjoying. But the best thing, as is often the case with cigar smoking, was not the cigars themselves, but the connections made while doing it.

Central America / Caribbean Panama

El Chorrillo

On my third and final full day in Panama City began with a good walk. Had I not scheduled a walking tour for 1pm I would have gone to the Metropolitan Park, which looks amazing – a big rainforest just north of the city centre with wildlife and hiking trails. But I didn’t have time, so while I was having coffee at the hostel one of the workers suggested I hike up the Ancon hill. It turned out to be an excellent idea.

I left the hotel and walked up Avenue Central outside the Casco Viejo into another neighbourhood. A few blocks and the area changed utterly. Casco Viejo is beautiful, but it is quiet and a little sanitized. The locals were basically relocated when the restoration occurred and so it all feels a bit artificial. Old Havana is similar in that it is colourful, touristy, and has been restored, but Old Havana still has locals living there so it is lively. Casco Viejo is not. But this new area was totally alive. People selling bananas and onions, lottery tickets and newspapers. Shops and restaurants busy with local people. None of them fancy, but busy. In the square that I passed people were hanging out, kids running around, music loudly playing.

The buildings in this area are mostly not so attractive as they were (I learned later that day) bombed and rebuilt, or bombed and left as shells during the American invasion of 20 December 1989, which is a date still spray painted around the area for remembrance.

There was still lots of street art, including one painted of two women painted on the shell of a former church.

I walked down Avenue Central until I saw the McDonalds on the right and took a left, walking about a block until I saw a small monument to the riots of 1964 wherein some high school students tried to take down the American flag and erect the Panamanian flag. A riot broke out and American soldiers killed a number of students. On the concrete walls along the highway that I crossed were murals honouring the event, including portraits of some of those killed.

From there I followed a snaking street past a hospital and fancy gated houses until the path up the mountain revealed itself. (If you are making this walk, just follow the road. It will seem like you’ve missed a turn off, but it will come. The signage just is not great until you have arrived.) Climbing up gave good views over the city with glimpses of skyline and tiled roofs, cemetery and harbour. Lots of families and ambitious cyclists were making the same ascent.

Half way back down it started to rain. Tropical, aggressive rain. Fortunately, I had an umbrella. Unfortunately it dod nothing but keep the water off my face and by the time I got back to town I was soaked. I spent the spent 30 minutes or so haggling to buy dry shoes.

Later that day I met with Victor who runs walking tours through his company PTY Local. This particular walk was through the El Chorrillo neighbourhood, known for being dangerous and poor. Indeed, my taxi driver had told me firmly never to walk there. I had already walked there a little bit and it seemed fine, but I wanted to see a bit more and learn a bit about the neighbourhood so I took this walking tour. I am so glad I did.

The tour was great. Victor was great company and explained about the history of El Chorrillo, Casco Viejo, and other neighbourhoods through dictators, invasion, gangs, and tourists. We walked around seeing murals and markets and meeting local people.

Victor also took us to the police station to learn about a program he started to keep kids off the streets and out of gangs. We chatted with people paying passionate games of dominos, playing music, and just hanging around, listening to music and having a drink. I was great. At the end Victor and I had dinner at the Coca Cola cafe, which had a pleasant diner feel and was cheap.

It was nice to have the company, but I really appreciated seeing other areas and knowing there is more beyond the boundaries of Casco Viejo.

I didn’t do much that evening. Went for dinner, read my book, had a cigar. And the next day I was home (via a super brief visit to Mexico City).

Panama City was a great weekend break. There wasn’t too much I wanted to do, so I left feeling satisfied, but also rested.

I like these little city breaks between longer vacations. It’s such a good way to see places that I have only a passing curiosity in or that only take a few days to see. And what would I do if I stayed home? Work? I’ll take Panama.

Central America / Caribbean Cuba

Weekend in Havana

A long weekend in Havana sounded perfect. I had been before, in 2014 I think, and I loved it. Mostly for the cigars, but it is a great destination in its own right – though if it wasn’t for the cigars I wouldn’t have gone back. I had already seen the sights I wanted to see in Havana, so a weekend sounded like a perfect opportunity to just hang out with no pressure to see or do anything in particular.

I left Vancouver on a Thursday evening, changed planes in Mexico City and landed in Havana at about 2:00pm on Friday. I arrived at the airport in Havana and, once through immigration, found myself doing the usual haggling with taxi drivers. They all wanted 40 or 35 CUCs, which I knew was too much. After making my counter offers, I was left rideless. I smoked a cigarillo, deciding how long to wait before upping my offering price, but then a guy who was picking up other passengers and also going to the National Hotel offered to take me for 10 CUC. Bingo.

I held the sign with the name of the family we were waiting for. When the family of four (two older couples) emerged, I suddenly found myself being asked to pose for pictures with them. I get that they were excited to travel to Cuba, but the airport pickup photos seemed excessive. I found out on the ride in that two of them were born in Cuba but left 40 years ago, moved to Puerto Rico and hadn’t seen their families since.

I arrived at the Hotel National giddy. With heat and humidity, with the excitement of being in Havana, and with the sight of that gorgeous patio facing the sea. Before even going to my room I bought a box of 10 Partagas torpedos and smoked a cigar on a wicker sofa outside.

My room was ordinary, but the Hotel Nacionale is a dream. It is this grand historical hotel that has so many stories that they do historical tours everyday of just the hotel.

From the hotel I walked mostly along the Malecon to old Havana, taking detours for street art and architecture. It wasn’t a long walk but I was dripping with sweat by the time I arrived.

I spent the rest of the day time hours walking around the old city revisiting streets and squares I have been to in the past.

Much of it was as I remembered but there were also new and refurbished buildings.

It’s such a touristy city but it still feels authentic. People live there and operate businesses. There was a new cool cafe that had opened, but next to it was still the same shack where locals paid a pittance to shoot bebe guns at beer cans.

I wandered aimlessly over that day and the next, taking time out to smoke cigars at the private room at the Partagas store and in At the La Casa in Miramar.

One of the best things that happened was walking through old Havana I heard loud Duke Ellington music and I thought, “That’s a place I need to be.” I figured it would be a bar or restaurant but when i found the door through which the blared I discovered that I had in fact walked in to a man’s humble living room.

He was older. 70 maybe. Sitting in a wooden chair in a pretty empty room next too a record player and a stack of records. I apologized a d said something about liking the music, but as I went to leave, he beckoned me in and pulled up a chair. He spoke no English and I speak only the most basic of Spanish but we hung out for the better part of an hour. He showed me his records – classic jazz and crooners. I played with his kitten and snapped my fingers along to Dexter Gordon. He played songs and I sung along to Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra. He put on an old Ray Charles album and got up to dance. He started twisting with enthusiasm. I felt suddenly awkward. Dancing with a stranger in his living room open to a busy pedestrian street is outside of my comfort zone, but I wasn’t going to sit there. That would be more awkward. So I danced. We danced for three songs and then I thanked him and left. It was a great experience. A brief connection.

I didn’t want to invade his hime by taking pictures of him, but I did take one of his kitten…and his foot.

I chilled out at my hotel in the evening, smoking cigars outside and in my room (just because I could). At about 11 pm I walked to the Fox and the Crow, nearby jazz bar and watched amazing jazz until nearly 1 am in an tiny underground bar.

And that was just one day.

The next day I did more of the same. Smoking, walking, reading, listing to buskers, drinking virgin piña coladas. It was perfect. I was actually happy to leave after two full days. I had what I wanted to do, soaked up the sun and the atmosphere; smoked more cigars than I can count. And then I was home.

I think that 2 days would not nearly be enough for a first visit to Havana, but for a second trip, for me, it was perfect. I’m sure I’ll go back for another two days of cuban cigar heaven.

Central America / Caribbean El Salvador

La Ruta de las Flores

On Sunday, day three in El Salvador, i was set to visit the Ruta de las Flores, a string of pretty towns in the mountains, surrounded by coffee farms. This was something one would need or more than a day to do on a bus, so i hired a driver and guide to take me the route. I am not one for tours, but a private car where I can control the pace and the itinerary somewhat is ok once in a while. The bonus was that I actually got a really good overview of El Salvador’s history, politics, economics…and I got to ask all of the questions that had been brewing for the past few day.

We left El Salvador early in the morning. As it turned out, the day I picked for my tour happened to be the annual day of the Ruta de las Flores, so in each town there was music, piñatas, firecrackers, food stalls, and other festivities. It was perfect.

Each town was lovely, but I didn’t feel like I needed to stay long than I did in each place. A visit to a market, a spin around a square, a trip to a church…each town had similar attributes, but each one had their own ‘thing’ also.

In Nahuizalco we visited the market and bought some guava juice and then added a powder made from pumpkin seeds with a but of salt, which we got from another vendor in the market. Pretty good. While drinking it, a flock of pre-teen girls slowly closed in around me until I was trapped in a circle of shy giggling. My guide said they were curious about my English and tattoos.

In Salcoatitan, we had pumpkin soaked in honey. In Juayúa we visited the plaza of the yucca, where the best yuccas in the country are sold (take that, second rate yuccas!). All along the way was beautiful green hills of coffee plants.

We had lunch of pupusas at a restaurant / coffee farm, where I got recruited to be in some commercial or tv spot. My job was to listen intently as a barista explained about different coffees, and then drink the coffees, looking pleased. I was made for this. I had espresso, cappuccino, chemex, and americano.

It was pouring rain, so i just took a quick walk in the garden where the most wonderful plants were growing.

From there, we visited the final town, Concepcion de Ataco, known for its colourful murals.

On this day though there was also a high school marching band competition, so we huddled in the rain and watched costumed teens play brass band instruments and engage in choreography on rocky, muddy ground in the rain. The weather did not dampen the enthusiasm of the crowd.

My guide helped me source out some local cigars, and we drove back to San Salvador. It was a pretty perfect day.