Selva Negra

Selva Negra, the black forest, was established by German immigrants who came to the Matagalpa highlands in the nineteenth century to grow coffee, and the estate that carries the name today combines a working organic coffee farm with a lodge and a large block of preserved cloud forest, around a dozen kilometres of marked trails running through it. The forest holds howler monkeys, quetzals in season, toucans and a good bird list, and the trails are among the easiest cloud-forest walking in the country because they are maintained and signed. Farm tours explain the coffee cycle from nursery to drying patio, and the estate runs on its own biogas and hydro. The architecture is Bavarian-styled, which is either charming or odd depending on taste.

What you actually see

• Marked forest trails - a dozen kilometres of maintained cloud-forest paths.
• The coffee farm - nursery, pickers, wet mill and drying patios.
• Quetzals and toucans - the highland birds of the estate forest.
• The German-styled estate - chalets and buildings in an imported idiom.

When to go

December to April for dry trails; coffee harvest runs roughly November to February and is when the farm tour is most interesting. Quetzals are most visible from March to June. It is cool and often misty year round.

Honest expectations

It is a private estate and everything is charged: entry, trails, tours and lodging. The Bavarian styling is a marketing choice and not to everyone's taste. Trails are easy rather than wild. It gets busy with groups and can feel managed compared with the community reserves nearby.

Nearby

Matagalpa lies south; Jinotega is north.