Walking León
Sandinista Memory and the City of Rubén Darío

From Managua I took a long-distance bus to León, a city in northern Nicaragua. "León" is Spanish for "lion." True to its name, a lion stands in front of the cathedral in the center of town.

Sandinista country

León is known as a stronghold of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, and traces of the civil war are still very visible. Bright murals on walls and monuments standing in just about every direction make it clear that this isn't only a tourist town.

It also has a lot of churches, and the colonial Spanish architecture and the memory of the revolution sit together in an odd kind of contrast.

Rubén Darío's house

León's other great cultural site is the home of the 19th-century poet Rubén Darío. He's said to have had an enormous influence on Spanish-language poetry, and his birthplace is open to the public as a museum.

In the Spanish-speaking world Darío is apparently a textbook figure — locals would ask "do you know Rubén Darío?" and at the time, I'm afraid, I had no idea. After the trip I looked him up: a great poet, no doubt about it.

Heroes & Martyrs gallery

The place that left the deepest impression was the Galería de Héroes y Mártires. Built to preserve records of those who fought in the civil war, it began — they told me — when local women started collecting the photographs themselves.

When I visited, the women on staff were eating lunch in the courtyard. A cat strolled around at their feet. They greeted me with a smile and waved me in.

A white-haired woman came over to talk. Her son had been killed in the revolution. There was no photo of him, so they couldn't put him on the wall inside. And then — "my son died right around that corner" — and she pointed gently to the alley outside.

"It's peaceful now, though," she said quietly, with a small smile. The weight of those words stayed with me for a long time.

Looking at the rows of photos and realizing that most of them died in their teens or twenties — there was nothing to say. The revolution wasn't a chapter in a textbook. It was the story of people who had lived right here.

Lobster, and Central American eating

After the sightseeing, food. I had lobster and curry at a place in León. Around 2,000 yen all in — a bit pricey by Central American standards, but for lobster, very reasonable.

The next day I'd visit a rum distillery before continuing on to El Salvador.

Central American food becomes part of your trip's memory — that turned out to be true.

Including the bathroom the next morning.

Nicaragua and Central America in a single guidebook — the Globe-Trotter (Chikyu no Arukikata) Central America edition covers Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. A go-to Japanese-language guidebook.

Globe-Trotter B20 Central America (Nicaragua and 6 other countries) 2018-2019

A complete Central America guide, including a chapter on Nicaragua

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