Have you had enough sitting around on the beach? Perhaps it's time for a trip up to cowboy country. Allow us to recommend the gentle cowboy country of the practically-unvisited departamentos of Chontales and Boaco.

Neither Boaco nor Chontales is a region you visit to see what sort of tourist attractions have been developed for your entertainment; rather, you go to see what Nicaragua looked like before tourists noticed Nicaragua. As such, plan on forgoing some creature comforts and navigating traditional culture, for in many of these small towns you will be the only foreigner on the streets. You could easily spend a day in one of many quiet agrarian towns. Boaco, Camoapa, and Cuapa all have a bucolic rural lifestyle, and offer and basic accommodation and small sites of historical, cultural, or geologic interest.

Tiny, isolated Cuapa is as famous for some of the worst atrocities of the Contra war as it is for several appearances of the Virgin Mary in the late 1980 and early 1981. An elaborate and well-maintained statue and sign greet you at the entrance to Cuapa with Bienvenido a la Tierra de Mara (Welcome to Mary's Land). Believers from all over eastern Nicaragua flock to Cuapa on May 8, the anniversary of the day the Virgin first appeared. Also there to welcome you are cheerful and pleasant cowboy families, like this one. Happy trails.