Other Definitions
matagalpa (dest)
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Matagalpa The city of Matagalpa is the third largest city of Nicaragua after Managua and Leon. At the arrival of the Spanish in 1564 its was an Indian town with its own language of Chibcha (South American) origin. Gold mine were dicovered there in 1808, but the Spanish Crown did not allow foreigners to settle in their colonies. After Nicaragua Independence from Spain in 1821 some gold seekers from Germany, and England arrived. In 1852 Katharina Brown Elster a German woman and her husband Louis Elster planted the first coffee plants in their farm close to Matagalpa, their highland coffee quality came up to be very good, so they invited other German colonist to come and settle, by the 1880s Matagalpa was producing and exporting the best coffee of the country. So the mayor atractions of this region are its virgin mountains, and shade coffee plantations with is its nice names stories (like Hammonia ( Hamburg in latin), Selva Negra, Leonesa, Quetzal, Bavaria)views, photo oportunities, scenic routes, and landscaping, mountain hiking, horseback riding, birdwatching, adventure, eco-tourism, and trekking. Matagalpa is well known in the international coffee market for its gourmet coffees. Matagalpa is a historical city, is was once a temporary capital of the country where the patriots formed the Ejercito del Septentrion, an army of local Indians armed with bows and arrows which finally help defeating William Walker, a filibusteer who had taken over the rest of country in 1856. Matagalpa is the birth city of Carlos Fonseca Amador, founded of the FSLN, there you can see a little museum dedicated to him. You can visit the neoclassic Cathedral built by the Jesuit Fathers in 1874, also the other colonial churchs like San Jose and Molagüina, the local Coffee Museum. In the Ateneo,a private chapel located in the Palacio Episcopal you can see one of the most valuable oil paintings of the country,it shows the Sacred Family with Saint Ignatious Loyola, and Saint Louis Gonzaga, it is believed was painted by Batolome Murillo, a classic Spanish painter from 1600s.
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