We just got back from a fact finding mission to Nicaragua. We left LAX at 1:00am and landed in a rainy Panama City at 7:00am. After running to the next plane (literally) we took off for Managua. An hour and a half later the plane 
lowered through the clouds, circled Lake Managua, landed and taxied to our terminal. I was surprised how small it looked!! After all this was Managua, Nicaragua…the capital!!
We made our way through customs, paid our $5.00 entry fee and were finally ready to go. After collecting our baggage we headed out the front doors. Wow! The heat was unbelievable. We were dressed for the cold weather we just came from. I had anticipated this, so I had layered my clothing and just had to take off my coat and sweater.
A truck from Nicasa Cigar factory picked up our luggage and an SUV sped us away to Estelí, our new home for the next 6 days. On the way, we stopped for lunch at La Fogata, an all you can eat buffet. Maria (our hostess) needed some fruit and vegetables, so we popped across the street and shopped in the open air market. This is a very poor country but beautiful. Green everywhere with mountains, trees and valleys that produce some of the best tobacco and coffee in the world. That was our mission while we were here…to plan a tobacco factory/plantation tour.
After unpacking at Los Arcos Hotel, we headed over to Nicasa Tobacco Factory where we met the owner Frank Flores. We took a quick tour, met some of the key people and headed off to dinner at Maria’s. Hospitality is one of the key words in this country. Everyone was friendly and ready to help. It was a long day so off to bed we went. The hotel was like an oasis…beautiful rooms, tile floors, friendly employees, FREE WIFI, roof top patio, central garden, and complimentary breakfast!
The next day we visited the tobacco fields… rotating crops, barns filled with drying tobacco leaves, the nursery where 
they start the plants, and even being driven out into the fields to pick tobacco. Right in the middle of that the sky opened up, so we ran for the truck to get out of the rain. We headed back home before everything became too muddy.
At the factory, we did the complete tour. It’s a long process to get to the end result. All the workers have their jobs, cutting, sorting, rolling, packing, labeling, banding, inspecting…..and I took photos/videos of all of it. Including ME rolling a cigar!
On the last day we drove to Masaya for some Flee Market shopping and then to Granada to inspect another hotel for the last day of the planned tour. We took a boat tour of Lake Nicaragua and saw little islands people actually buy and build houses on!! One of the islands had monkeys on it and the only way they got fed was if tourists brought cookies, etc and fed them.
All in all it was a fascinating trip and I’m ready to take some adventurous cigar aficionados on a trip of a lifetime. Are you going to be one of them?
