nicaragua hotels

Nicaragua may be one of the world’s hot eco-destinations, but the lodgings were hippie-chic at best—until Mukul opened last year. The resort, set on a majestic sweep of Nicaragua’s Pacific coast, is the brainchild of Don Carlos Pellas of the billionaire Pellas family, whose holistic vision for the area includes conservation and new jobs for the surrounding communities. It’s both epic and intimate: Twelve clay-tile-roofed villas and 23 bohios (huts with their own plunge pools) are tucked into a beachscape of wide-screen beauty, while the grand open-air lobby is configured in the palapa style. The thing I appreciated most, however, was the sense of discretion that prevails here: Mukul means secret in Tzotzil, a Mayan language, and indeed everything from the subtle service to the privacy-ensuring sight lines (even the golf course, located in a lush valley behind the hotel, is all but invisible from the rooms) delivers beautifully on that promise.