Travel guide Managua

Nestled on the shores of Lake Xolotlán, Nicaragua's capital is an astonishing city: this archipelago of colorful neighborhoods has almost no skyscrapers, and resembles a market town in the heart of a scrubby forest. And yet, in 2023, it will be home to 1.3 million inhabitants - almost one-sixth of the country's population! Go beyond its apparent inhospitality and let yourself be carried away by the labyrinth of streets without names (they have numbers) and by its historical and natural sites: Revolution Square, the National Palace, the Acahualinca archaeological museum or the astonishing Tiscapa Lake Nature Reserve, where an 18-metre statue of Augusto C. Sandino, the emblematic leader of Nicaragua's guerrilla movement in the late 1920s, overlooks a surprising volcanic lagoon. A reminder, right in the center of the capital, that Nicaragua is a country of volcanoes and richly varied natural wonders.