LA LAGUNA DE TISCAPA

Continuing south on Avenida Bolívar, pass the Plaza Inter mall on your left, then turn left behind the Crowne Plaza Hotel to find the Parque Historica, a breezy spot overlooking a volcanic lagoon and the rest of the city. The twin-towered monument halfway up the road is the Monumento Roosevelt, which delineated the southern terminus of the city pre-earthquake. Twenty meters farther up the hill is the statue of justice, sardonically decapitated ages ago. The statue of Sandino atop the crater lip is one of Managua’s most recognizable symbols and is protected by the military: The Sandinistas erected it atop the wreckage of Somoza’s presidential mansion. Just up the hill but closed to the public rests Las Masmorras, a barbarous prison in which Somoza tortured many political prisoners, including Daniel Ortega.

  The Laguna de Tiscapa, once a treasured swimming hole of pristine waters, was defiled in the 1980s when it began receiving untreated sewage from nearby neighborhoods. That hasn’t kept the mayor’s office from trying to exploit its potential for tourism. Try out the zip lines (a.k.a. canopy tour) that send you rocketing over the crater on three cable-connected platforms (8 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Mon.–Sat., $10 for foreigners, $6 for Nicas). As canopy tours go, Managua’s is cheaper than elsewhere with no sacrifice in safety, but the waters below are sketchy, so concentrate instead on the broad panoramas around you—some of the best in the capital—and keep your speed up. When historical figure Comandante Tomás Borge tried the lines, he got stuck halfway across like an old sock, to the delight of crowds that jeered, “Cut the cable!” On the northeast side of Laguna Tiscapa, just two blocks from the Ministerio de Gobernación, is the site of the old U.S. Embassy, leveled during the earthquake.