High up in the mountains of the north, accessible only by an unpaved road with river crossings, usually hidden in a cloud, there grow one of the finest coffee beans in Nicaragua. The Datanlí-El Diablo natural park covers almost 6 000 hectares of land, most of which is covered by a cloud forest and inhabited by many sorts of birds (including toucans) and other animals (pumas, for example), as well as variety of flowers. Directly inside the park, there is a community called La Bastilla. Their coffee plantations cover the surrounding slopes, they operate an agricultural school and of course they process the coffee and export it worldwide.
La Bastilla also operates an ecolodge, and so tourists can come and experience it all themselves. You can choose from tour around the plantations, bird-watching tour, coffee production tour, coffee tastings and some more. Is it all quite expensive, but scenery is really special and you can sleep with good feeling that most of your money went to support local community. You can also go for a one day hike around the park. The coffee production tour is very interesting.
