cigar aficionado mag in Nicaragua

Cigar Aficionado on the trail in northern Nicaragua http://tiny.cc/Joyas113

"The sun was dropping below the mountaintops, and darkness was coming quickly to the small farming valley in north central Nicaragua. But Dr. Alejandro Martinez Cuenca, the owner of the Joya de Nicaragua brand, showed no signs of nervousness as we climbed into his SUV and his driver steered us out on the Pan-American Highway headed toward Managua. The last rays of light disappeared from the sky. I silently thought that 30 years before, or even the last time I was in Nicaragua in the 1990s, I would no sooner travel the highway between Estelí and Managua after dark than jump into a rattlesnake pit. Not today. The road was filled with traffic, small cars, buses and semi-trucks vying for space at every turn.

Don’t take my amazement the wrong way. This was not a smooth, easy ride on a superhighway between two big cities. It was a dangerous dance on a narrow, winding two-lane road, first through the mountains and then rolling agricultural land, some of it scarred with potholes and twice blocked by looming hulks of stalled trucks, their presence in the dark notable only by a small little red triangle sitting in the southbound lane less than 20 yards from the back of the blacked out vehicle—a foot on the brake pedal is a necessary driving skill here. There was no livestock lounging on the asphalt this trip, but that too can be a nighttime driving hazard since the herd usually forgets to put out the red triangle. And one can’t forget the two-wheeled, donkey-powered carts, or the ancient four-wheeled cars held together with bailing wire crawling along at less than 10 miles an hour in the same lane as cars traveling 60 miles an hour or more. More than once, our driver had to nearly come to a halt as an oncoming car failed to gauge the amount of space he needed to get back on his side of the road as he passed a slower-moving vehicle, and the same thing happened as drivers passed us and darted back into their proper lane before getting crushed by an oncoming car or worse, a passenger bus, its sides decorated like a holiday season, department store facade, each corner set off by another neon light of red, yellow, green or blue. Never a dull moment; our driver was extremely cautious, thank god, despite the fact it took more than two hours and 30 minutes to traverse the approximate 90 miles."

Did you LaJoyas de Nicaragua was the official White House Cigar during the 70s?