Little Corn Island - a week in paradise

As mentioned in the last post, traveling to the Corn Islands requires a lot of patience, especially when it comes to planning (which is why most of the people we met on the trip decided not to go there) - we already knew that the ferry to the islands, which are about 70 km away from the mainland, only runs twice a week, but it was difficult to find out on which days (too much conflicting information on the internet). In the end, we had no choice but to rely on the most up-to-date information we could find from other travelers and embark on the journey with a somewhat uneasy feeling :)

In the morning, we first went from Estelí to Managua (about 4 hours drive), where we had to take a taxi to the right bus station and wait for our bus, which left at 9 pm. After the bus unexpectedly left 1.5 hours earlier than planned, we traveled for 8 hours across Nicaragua to the Caribbean coast, where we arrived in Bluefields at around 5 am. Then, at 9 am, we continued - 6 hours on a completely crowded boat (apart from the many people on the boat, there were also lots of washing machines, refrigerators, and even chickens being transported) across the Caribbean Sea. Once we arrived on Big Corn Island, we had to wait for about 1 hour for the last boat that took us to Little Corn Island. In San Juan del Sur, we had already received a recommendation for accommodation: a small wooden hut right on the beach for 10 dollars per night, owned by a nice, slightly confused older lady named Elsa. Luckily, Elsa's son happened to be at the dock on Little Corn with a wheelbarrow, trying to attract some guests, so we didn't even have to carry our luggage to the accommodation.

How relieved we were to finally arrive! Admittedly, Paddy and I had a pretty high stress level a few days before our arrival on Little Corn, as we were just annoyed by constantly being begged for money in the most disrespectful manner, being stared at and talked to in a silly way, and unfortunately, we repeatedly felt unwelcome and poorly treated (of course, not everyone we met was like that!). Nicaragua is indeed a relatively poor country with many political problems, but after a while, we lacked understanding of why we, as tourists, had to be treated so badly in some cases. Especially after the day in Managua (where we were, it was incredibly dirty and noisy, it stank, and one had the feeling that one should not let one's luggage out of one's sight for more than 2 seconds), the first evening on the Corn Islands was truly soothing for the soul. The Corn Islands (Big Corn and Little Corn) felt like a different country to us: the people were consistently super kind and helpful, they greeted each other on the streets, and suddenly, not only Spanish was spoken, but also an entertaining mix of English and Spanish with a significant accent.

We spent most of our week on Little Corn Island snorkeling, walking, petting dogs and removing ticks (Paddy is gradually becoming a pro), reading (as often, there was a bookshelf with collected works in our accommodation where we both found something interesting to read), visiting a baseball tournament (apparently the sport of choice in Nicaragua), and eating :) since a large part of the people on Little Corn make a living from fishing and you probably rarely have the opportunity to eat fish that is so sustainable and yet affordable, we went to a restaurant twice and also cooked fish ourselves once (we had received it as a gift from the hostel owner or rather her grandson Kennedy, who took care of everything). We also spent very relaxed evenings on our small terrace with good Nicaraguan rum and the cigar we received as a gift in Estelí, while we could observe the rising moon, a dreamy starry sky, and many shooting stars over the sea. Almost too good to be true!

A few more words about snorkeling on Little Corn, because it was simply unbelievably beautiful: throughout the trip, we carried our snorkeling gear with us (although without fins) and then we were lucky enough to meet a nice sibling couple from Cape Town, who offered to lend us their fins. So, the first time, each of us went swimming with one fin (I wore four individual socks under the fin because it was way too big), and we reached a beautiful coral reef. After realizing how much you can see in swimming distance of the underwater world, we decided to borrow fins for both of us and go out on our own before booking one of the many snorkeling tours offered. Said and done: on the other side of the island, there was a dive shop where we rented fins and went straight into the sea. There, we actually saw larger animals like stingrays, barracudas, and starfish - and at noon, I was lucky enough to encounter a turtle underwater. Unfortunately, Paddy was too far away from me and when I desperately tried to get his attention to the turtle by screaming underwater and waving my arms, it disappeared faster than I could have imagined.

On our second to last evening, we had the luck to spontaneously join a night snorkeling tour at half price. We had met a very nice Austrian couple (both about 40 years old and traveling for a year in total), with whom we had already spent a lot of time. They had booked the tour, but since Thomas had unfortunately fallen ill, they couldn't join and asked us if we wanted to spontaneously do the tour an hour later. Of course, we did! During the sunset, our guide + boat driver took us out to sea. Paddy was equipped with a flashlight and off we went! It was somehow quite crazy and initially a bit scary to snorkel in the darkness in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, but the beautiful underwater world (which is completely different at night) didn't leave much time to worry. We saw lots of lobsters, squids (changing colors), a lionfish, stingrays, a small shark, starfish, huge sea urchins,... but my personal highlight was actually the bioluminescent plankton that lit up next to us when Paddy and our guide turned off the flashlights. So beautiful!

We spent another night on Big Corn Island before taking the ferry back to the mainland. Except that we initially ended up in a hotel that we found to be so incredibly dirty and disgusting upon closer inspection that we actually asked for our money back and looked for a new accommodation. Unfortunately, we had a night where we hardly slept there (there was another power outage and it was so hot that we couldn't sleep without a fan) before we took the ferry back to the mainland early in the morning the next day.