Matagalpa and Carlos Fonseca Amador

Sunday morning I took advantage of the free pancakes and bananas for breakfast at the hostel in Granada and packed up to leave. I caught a bus to Managua where I then had to take a taxi across town to the other bus station (there are like four bus stations in Managua). I was planning on catching the bus to Jinotega. However, when I arrived the bus to Jinotega wasn’t going to leave until later in the afternoon and I would likely have arrived close to dark. Sunday is a hard day to travel. There just aren’t as many buses leaving as usual due to the fact that more people are staying close to home on what is often the only day off that they have each week. There was an express bus leaving for Matagalpa, another location I was planning on going anyway, so I hopped on that one. Sometimes you have to be flexible when you’re traveling. Luckily, I had researched both areas so I wasn’t going to Matagalpa completely unprepared.

I found the hotel that I was looking for easily, located kitty corner from Parque Ruben Dario, which was not the central park, but turned out to be much prettier than the central park. The hotel was located behind and above a pharmacy owned by a couple who were both retired doctors. They were very friendly and welcoming. I wandered around town for a bit after dropping off my things and ran into an American man, Dave, who had lived in Costa Rica, then moved to Granada, then to Matagalpa, searching for a location that was less touristy. He had moved from each location because of the increase in tourism there. He was rather in his cups and feeling very chatty. I joined him for a couple beers and then headed back to the hotel to rest for a bit before dinner.

Parque Dario

The paths in Parque Dario

So, of course, the power went out. When I went out looking for dinner everything was shutting down since there was no electricity. There was a grocery store open so I was able to buy some bread to go with the peanut butter I had picked up in San Juan del Sur. It wasn’t a fancy dinner but it worked in a pinch.

I spent Monday and Tuesday wandering around the town of Matagalpa. I found a great little coffee place where I could get granola and yogurt with fresh fruit for breakfast which was a treat. Supposedly they even had chai, but the two times I asked for it I got a latte instead. I’m not sure if they didn’t have it or if they had just never had anyone order it before so didn’t know what it was. Luckily, I was in coffee country so the latte was really good (and this is coming from a reluctant coffee drinker). 

El Templo de San Jose de Laborio

Tuesday I headed to the museum of Carlos Fonseca, the founder of the FSLN (Frente Sandinsta de Liberacion Nacional), which was the group that finally brought the Somoza family dictatorship to an end in 1979. The museum was based in his childhood home, just a couple blocks up from Parque Dario. It was filled with photos, examples of his writing, and memorabilia from old guns to typewriters. His story is an interesting one. 

Carlos Fonseca Amador was born in 1936 to a woman who worked as a cook in the house of his father who was an accountant for a U.S. owned mining company. At a young age he began helping his mother take care of his other four siblings by selling candies on the street and later on selling newspapers.

When Carlos entered secondary school he learned about Augusto Sandino who had fought against the increasing inequalities in Nicaraguan society in the 1920s and 1930s, but whose story had been all but obliterated from Nicaraguan history books by the Somoza dictatorship. It is necessary to know a bit more about Sandino to understand why he became so important to Carlos Fonseca and the Sandinistas (as they came to be known).

Sandino was born the illegitimate child of wealthy judge and one of his servant women. Early on Sandino became aware of the injustices that existed in his society and that they were being reinforced not only by the Nicaraguan government, but by the Catholic Church, and also by the U.S. government that had arrived in 1910 to shore up a failing presidency. Sandino fought from the mountains with small groups of men who were quite effective at “hit-and-run” raids. Sandino became a popular figure throughout the country fighting for the rights of those most in need in his country, which was the majority of the population. However, when Anastasio Somoza became president in 1933 (the beginning of 66 year of a family dictatorship), he invited Sandino to Managua for a meeting to discuss a ceasefire in February of 1934. At some point during his time in Managua he was assassinated. His body has never been found.

As Carlos and other young people began to group together to protest the repressive dictatorship of Somoza in the 50s and 60s, Sandino became an important figure to them as a Nicaraguan who had stood up to tyranny before. Many of them were imprisoned and tortured various times throughout the 50s, 60s, and 70s. They were also often exiled from the country as well and during these times often met with sympathetic leaders of other countries in Central America and the Caribbean. In 1961 the FSLN was established by Fonseca and many of his comrades. They drew support from huge numbers of Nicaraguans who were tired of living in fear and poverty brought on by the Somoza dictatorship. Once again, the Nicaraguans took to the mountains to fight in the mid-60s. In 1976, an informant told the military where Carlos could be found and witnesses say he was killed after he was captured. His body was mutilated and his hands were sent to Managua to be identified. However, Fonseca’s death proved to be a rallying cry for the people of Nicaragua. They continued to battle against Somoza and eventually in July of 1979 were able to defeat the dictatorship. He is still regarded as a national hero. I will share more on this era later.