Si in South America!: Big Corn, Little Corn!

Nicaragua is not the easiest of countries to get around. There is lots to do in the South and beautiful islands in the North. In between is a huge forested wilderness that takes up about 60% of the country. This wilderness does not include roads.

I really wanted to visit the Corn Islands to the North. The two small islands, known as Big Corn (6 km²) and Little Corn (1.6 km²), have excellent diving and a laid back Caribbean vibe. There are two options to get there; a 55 minute flight for $80 or a 2hr bus, followed by a 7.5hr bus, followed by a 3.5hr boat ride down a river, followed by 6-8hs on the open sea, costing about $45. I took the flight - I must be getting old.

I beat my personal best for travelling on a small plane, this one had only nine seats! My previous best was a 16-seater in Bolivia on the way to the Amazon.

We arrived on Big Corn and made our way to the port to get the boat to Little Corn. Walking time would have been 30 minutes, but we saved 15 minutes by cutting across the runway! Stepping onto Little Corn is like arriving in a different country. For starters, everyone speaks English. It is the musical, laid back English of the Caribbean - if you don't know what I mean say "beer can" out loud. This is how a person from the Caribbean would say "bacon".

We spent the first night in small cabinas on a beautiful beach on the North side of the island. The place was decorated in yellow, green and red and had a resident parrot. It seemed like a beautiful place.

It turned out to be a nightmare. The generator for the whole island had been broken for 10 days, with no sight of it being fixed anytime soon, so there is no power anywhere. This made it fairly difficult to get around after dark. The place was next to a small swamp, providing the area with swarms of mosquitoes. At night the temperature merely dropped from 45°C to 44.7°C. After two hours of sleep I had pretty much decided that we'd be changing accommodation. The others were mulling it over until a Dutch girl, the only other guest at the cabinas, ran over crying and told us that some guy had got into her room in the night. She woke up as he was climbing through the window and luckily scared him off. That decided it then. Also I think the parrot was evil.

The next place was nice and we made some local friends along the way. That night they invited us and some other backpackers to a BBQ and cooked up some fish on a fire. The night was spent singing along to Bob Marley and listening to the locals playing the drums.

Anyway, it was all about the diving. And it was cheap! I did three dives, seeing stingrays, dolphins, a turtle and lots of fish.

The last dive location was called Jake's Place, after Jake the Nurse Shark. The area has Angel fish, which are a nuisance, that are speared by the locals. They used to feed them to the nurse sharks in the area, particularly Jake. For this reason, he's really comfortable with humans and follows you around when you're diving. At one point he swam right up to my face and nudged me with his fin! Such an amazing experience...

The rest of the time was spent chilling on some beautiful beaches and I managed to catch a local baseball game. I also met some kids who wanted to show me their family of turtles. They were selling them for $1 - I considered buying a travelling companion but I like travelling solo too much.

I'm back on the mainland now, heading to the town of Leon for some Volcano boarding....

The boarding pass for the flight to the Corn Islands was almost as big as the plane.