The Black Forest

After a quick few days in Esteli I skipped town and headed to the cloud forests outside Matagalpa, Nicaragua.  The only real access to the few existing trails in the area are from the finca at Selva Negra.  Nestled in the forested mountain slopes of the same name, the finca has both a working coffee plantation and a hotel/restaurant on it's grounds.  And what a hotel!  More of a resort really.  If anyone feels like getting married, or maybe a nice family reunion some time (hint), this'd be the place to do it.  Just beautiful.  Next time we do a reunion, this is my suggestion.  I figure if we all have to fly anyway, why not Nicaragua?  Plus the rooms are cheaper...

The surrounding hillsides are accessible through a web of well maintained trails.  Not a huge number of trails, but definitely enough for several good days of hiking.  I really don't mind hiking the same trails repeatedly though, so it would be easy to spend a week in the area.  Supposedly they have quetzals and mountain lions in the area.  I had to settle for howler monkeys and toucans.  Oh and agoutis.  Oh and tree frogs.  Freaking tree frogs!  Awesome.  I had to go out in the middle of the night with a flashlight to find them, but a couple of hours of checking all the bromeliads I could reach and I found a few.  Kinda plain, tiny, brown ones.  But hey, they were still tree frogs living in bromeliads!  It's just a matter of time before I find a red-eyed tree frog, or poison dart frog.  To that end, I went a bought a mirror when I got to Grenada which I'll tie to the end of branch so I can see into bromeliads up above my head.  That should increase my chances a bit.

Oh and if Governor Richardson is reading this, the owner, Eddy Kuhl, asked me to say hi for him.  Apparently he wrote a book which, in part, mentions your grandfather here in Matagalpa.