Jinotega is probably one of my favorite corners of Nicaragua, and because it's a bit out of the way, well off the realtors' map, and relatively untouristed, I like it even more. Jinotega is authentic, it's unapologetic, and it is remarkable.

Find Jinotega in the mountains northeast of Matagalpa (itself rather out of the way relative to the traditional tourist circuit), covered most mornings with a cool mist as the sun creeps up over the surrounding peaks. Those peaks define the flavor of the town: mountainous, a bit isolated, at the edge of a wilderness much less traveled than the roads that led you there. In many ways, Jinotega is a frontier town, and that's how we portray it in Moon Nicaragua: your last good place to stock up on groceries before you hit the really off-roads.

One of my personal favorite places in Nicaragua is found just uphill from the town of Balgüe is the famed Finca Magdalena, a coffee cooperative established in the 1980s on land confiscated from the Maltodano family. It now employs 27 families. Magdalena and its barn-like second story accommodation has been a must-see stop on the Central America backpacker trail for a decade, where everyone showers in the same bracing cold water piped directly from a spring up the slope.

Rama's not as far out of the way as it used to be in the days before the glistening, paved highway linked it with Managua, in fact before about 2000 Rama was at the end of one of Nicaragua's most spine-crushing roads. Call Rama the town that links the Caribbean, English speaking Atlantic Coast with the Spanish speaking, cattle raising highlands of Nicaragua's interior, and treat it with all the respect of such a frontier town. In fact, a longtime riverine port and trader town, El Rama is a melting pot where Mestizo cattle traders meet Caribbean steamer captains, and dark skinned Creoles meet Nicaraguan "Spaniards" from the Pacific.