La Paz Centro is a small town in the León department, in the hot, dry northwest of Nicaragua. Home to about 10,000 people, the town straddles the continental divide and is surrounded by several small villages known as comarcas.
La Paz Centro is best known for its pottery and its quesillo — a local cheese dish wrapped in a tortilla that has become a roadside staple throughout the region. Travellers on the highway between León and Managua often stop here specifically for the quesillo vendors.
The town also makes a practical jumping-off point for Cerro Negro, the volcano-boarding cinder cone north of town, and sits at the foot of Momotombo, the near-perfect volcanic cone that dominates every Nicaraguan picture postcard.