Jalacate una cultura a través del arte

The El Jalacate estate is a heritage of the grandparents of Mr. Alberto Gutiérrez. To arrive, you must take the Pan-American Highway and turn into a detour at kilometer 135, then continue until you reach the El Tisey nature reserve and after a few kilometers the farm is located The Jalacate, where the sculptor lives.

Your house does not measure more than six square meters. It is made of a few puny boards and inside it has only one bed that occupies half the space, whose mattress are small pieces of cardboard and some old rags that cover it. There is also a makeshift table: made of old plastic pieces and cardboard: a radio, glasses, and a photograph hanging from a nail about to fall. In the picture he looks young, relatively. He does not remember how many years ago they took it. Of course, always with a cigar in the mouth. Daily walks a kilometer to the sale to buy your pack of cigarettes. That is his only vice. He was an alcoholic for some years, but he managed to get rid of the vice thanks to his work. There are coffee plants too. In his home he has a mill that he uses to grind the coffee beans he sows. - What do you live? -From the help that the tourists that come to visit me leave me. They leave me money, whatever they want and with that I buy the things I need. -And when nobod...

His initial idea was not to make himself known in the town, but people would only appreciate what he was doing. "I wanted to be a hermit, but I let myself be seen by the first people and then tourists began to arrive from Nicaragua and around the world," explains Alberto. The worn, oversized shoes he is wearing were given to him by an Australian tourist 16 years ago and he has been wearing them ever since. He has become friends with hundreds of visitors who come looking for his "great work of culture" And like their admirers, the sculptures have a cosmopolitan touch that characterizes them, because in some rocks Arab camels, the twin towers of New York, elephants of India and even boas of Brazil are depicted. "Welcome gallery of sculptures", he repeats at the same time that he points to the sign that welcomes visitors. He smiles tenderly as he looks at his name written there. He is still learning to read and write, nobody teaches him, nobody...

We assure you that you will not run out of breath on  the walk. You will be surrounded by about 14 thousand fruit trees and oaks, which the same owner has planted. In this place your sight will be lost among the creations in the stones, some pineapple about to be cut, the green of a small coffee plantation and of course the beauty of orchids and lilies, of different colors.

Carrying out the El Jalacate trail will always be a unique experience. His sculptor works every day in the development engravings in stone, carved by hand with the aid of a stone and a chisel. Don Alberto says that one day he had a dream in which he was."asked" to leave a "legacy". The next day he got up and from there he has not stopped creating .

Hotel Boutique Marduk Gardens is located in San Nicolás and offers accommodation with mountain and garden views. All accommodation has a terrace overlooking the garden. A continental breakfast is served daily. The campsite has a children's playground. Cycling is possible nearby.

La Garnacha is a community and natural reserve, which has a core area of ​​22 thousand hectares. Inside it there is a cheese factory, the "zopilote" stone handicraft workshop, an earthworm farm, a shelter, a seedbed of medicinal plants, a goat farm, a ranch where they sell natural refreshments and coffee harvested in the area, and a store where all these products are sold. It also has a viewpoint to the Apaguajil Hill, the Cave of the Goblins and an impressive view of the Pacific of Nicaragua. The Garnacha is located approximately 15 kilometers from the city of Estelí and 145 kilometers from Managua, at 1,400 meters above sea level. It is part of the Tisey Estanzuela reserve, but it is within the buffer zone of it. The inhabitants of the La Garnacha community are the ones who administer the reserve and take care of the tours; they also work with their own hands all the products that are offered there. As a cooperative, they are under the name of Asociación Agrícola San Nico...

Road to San Nicolás in the junction of the Laguna, is El Mirador Turístico Rancho de Don Luis, a cool, pleasant place with beautiful scenery. Its owners, Don José Luis López and his wife, Odilí Alfaro Gutiérrez, inherited the farm; when Don Luis's father passed away. They decided in 2004 to move to the property with the idea of creating a family business that they would call "El Rancho de Don Luis", the project worked. With great effort and an initial investment of $ 1,625 dollars, began the remodeling of the premises and construction of a dining room. To achieve this, they had the support of friends who provided them with some essential items, and the Rural Research and Development Foundation (FIDER) also made a loan for the construction of two cabins. The success was visible from the first day. Don José Luis thinks that it is an advantage that the Ranch be considered a protected area; he believes that his success is due to the attention given to his clients when they ...

1. Location and access: The inn is located in the Tisey-Estanzuela Nature Reserve, municipality of San Nicolás, department of Estelí. To get to this destination, in Managua take one of the buses that leave the Mayoreo Market in the direction of the city of Estelí and get off at the junction of San Nicolás. From there, walk 8 kilometers of paved road and 5 of dirt road. Alternatively, go to the Esteli South terminal and take a bus to Estanzuela (6 am and 1:30 pm), which leaves you 300 meters from the inn. 2. Ecosystem: The inn is located in the Finca del Tisey, in the Tisey Estanzuela Nature Reserve, at an altitude between 1,400 and 1,550 meters. The zone registers an average annual temperature that oscillates between 17º and 25º degrees. 3. Tourist attractions: The visitor can walk in the tropical humid forest where he will observe a great variety of species of flora and fauna. You can also admire the beautiful landscapes of the area from various natural viewpoints; visit the coffe...

Although it seems hard to believe, this path away from the city, lulled by the mountains, with a cool climate and irregular geography, welcomes thousands of tourists from different parts of the world. In the 15 books that Don Alberto keeps in his house, there are the records of swiss, french, german, dutch, american, canadian and of cours Nicaraguans who have arrived enthusiastically.

Sculptures carved on stones of all sizes make the EL JALACATE trail a fascinating walk. His artist is Alberto Gutiérrez Jirón, 75. a man with long, white hair, who has carved for almost 30 years, the events that have been relevant to him and have marked the history of  Nicaragua and humanity, for example the fall of the Twin Towers, the discovery of America and the birth of Jesus.