Is Managua worth visiting

Managua was the one part of Nicaragua I did not warm to, and I would rather be
useful about that than just negative, because almost everyone who comes to the
country arrives here and has to decide what to do about it.

We gave it an afternoon. That turned out to be the right amount.

The capital does not work the way the rest of the country does. There is no
colonial core to wander, because the centre came down in an earthquake decades
ago; what you get instead is a low, green, spread-out city that has to be driven
rather than walked. If you have arrived with Granada and León in your head, all
painted streets and courtyards, the adjustment is abrupt and nobody warns you
about it.

Two things earned the stop. The first is the hill at Tiscapa, where a giant black
cutout of Sandino in his hat stands over the whole city, on the ground where a
dictator's palace used to be, with a row of flagpoles in front of him. From up
there you get the thing the city genuinely has and the guidebooks undersell: a
view across a low green skyline to Lake Managua, with a line of volcanoes
standing along the far shore. It rearranged how I felt about the place in about a
minute.

The second is the lakefront, where the money has gone. Rows of tall coloured
steel trees run along the water, lit after dark, with fairground stalls behind
them and a bronze horseman on a plinth flying the Sandinista, Nicaraguan and
Venezuelan flags together. Whatever you make of all that, it is the most
revealing half hour in the city.

Then go. Granada and León are both a short drive, and they are what you actually
came for. Managua is a place to land in, look at properly once, and leave – and
knowing that before you arrive is worth more than any list of things to do here.