Juigalpa is the capital of the Chontales region of Nicaragua, where the majority of the country's beef is produced. You can tell it's cattle country by the wooden rodeo stands in many villages and towns we passed through and by the high percentage of men wearing cowboy hats, not to mention the availability of dairy products and top quality steaks.
A lovely hilltop park with a cow and maize statue, perhaps once a fountain.Heading east from Managua on our way to the Caribbean coast, we chose Juigalpa as a stopping off point on the way there and again on the return journey. 
It has the most modern cathedral we have seen in Nicaragua with beautiful contemporary stain glass windows. 
Juigalpa seemed to be a fairly religious place as we saw people pouring into the church on the two Thursday evenings we spent here.
It has the most modern cathedral we have seen in Nicaragua with beautiful contemporary stain glass windows. 
Juigalpa seemed to be a fairly religious place as we saw people pouring into the church on the two Thursday evenings we spent here.
One of the town's main tourist attraction is its excellent collection of pre-hispanic stonework, housed in a small warehouse. 
There was also a room at the back with ceramics, random antique objects and a section on stuffed animals with genetic defects - think a calf with 3 heads and 2 penises. We didn't take any photos of this, nor of the pickled baby born with one eye, we found it a bit disturbing. We read in the guidebook that there was a great swimming hole a few kilometres out of town on a dammed up section of the river, popular with local kids. The taxi dropped us off at an unsignposted track on the main road, which we walked down to discover some lovely boulders and rocks bordering the river, but nobody else around and no obvious place to swim. 
A little more exploring up river and we came upon a large concrete wall and a big swimming hole. It clearly wasn't used very much any more, largely due to the fact that whoever had come up with the original concept of damming the river, had failed to take into account that any trees, logs and branches floating downstream would get stuck there. 
Spot a very white Simon trying to gently lower himself off the dam wall.
Spot a very white Simon trying to gently lower himself off the dam wall.Luckily the far side was still clear and the water still clean, so we had a quick, refreshing dip to wash away the day's travel dust.
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