Loma de Tiscapa

OVERVIEW

A small volcanic hill with a crater lake at the centre of Managua, first fortified in 1894 under Zelaya and the site of the Presidential Palace — 'La Loma' — from which the Somoza family ruled from the 1930s to 1979. The palace fell in the 1972 earthquake; the dictatorship built a bunker on the hill afterwards. Since 1996 it has been a national historic park, marked by the giant steel silhouette of Augusto Sandino, who was seized here after dinner with Somoza García on 21 February 1934 and shot that night.

HISTORY

The hill held the offices of the National Guard's security service; the cells beneath were where political prisoners were held and tortured, a record set out in the Rebellion Monument and the park's own displays. A tank given by Mussolini and the fragments of Somoza García's toppled statue are on view.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

Visitors and park employees, quoted in the regional press, describe screams and the sound of dragging chains from the old cells, and figures of prisoners in them. The Laguna de Tiscapa below has its own older tradition, recorded by Managua's chroniclers, of witches in the form of monkeys who rise from the water at night. The prison's history is documented; what is heard there is reported, not established.

VISITING

Open daily; a viewpoint over the city and lake, the Sandino monument, the tank and the historical displays. A zip line runs over the lagoon.