Nicargua: Discover An Emerging Destination

As I have said repeatedly through this blog, we like places where there are few footprints. I want to go to a country or location that is less traveled and tourists with fanny packs, stark white legs and sneakers, have not found it as yet. Since I can’t go to the moon, I want to go places that make me excited with the unknown, offering risk and reward.

That is Nicaragua today.

Let me say too that I wish after high school or college I had the luxury or chance to put on a backpack and travel the world for a year or so to find my way. Or a summer--no actually even a week in Yosemite-- would have been better than being an enumerator for the Polk City Directory in July or cutting peaches in a fruit packing house, taking 21 units and being a housewife with 2 jobs.

But I digress into my own life.

Nicaragua was filled with mostly young (and some older) adults from all over the world with backpacks and loose agendas. They generally had svelte bodies and good tans. British, Swedish, Italian, French, Spanish, Danish, Scottish and American accents. They had either trust funds or a few Cordoba type budgets. Some were working their way through the world as hotel employees and dive masters.

There were old beach bums, and new ones; freshly minted divers on Little Corn Island and old geezer’s like ourselves that couldn’t keep up with the kid’s boundless energy.

There were old travelers who were coming back for another visit or to stay and give something back for a few months, weeks or years.

And the people of Nicaragua’s Corn Islands? The Nicas? They are Miskitos (NOT mosquitos) and black decendents; Brit’s with checkered pirate pasts and other forms of Spanish and mixed Indians. The Caribbean side speaks predominantly English with Spanish as the second language and then there is the Spanish dominated mainland.

There are “white lobsters” (cocaine) and then there are the real lobsters that are so cheap and delicious on Little Corn.

Where is Little Corn Island? It is a 1 hour 20 minute flight from Managua, Nicaragua on Los Costeńo Airlines in a 12 passenger single engine plane or a twin that carries more but might make a stop enroute. We were well over our 30 pound per person allowed luggage and I semi-happily paid the $66 in overage fees. I knew it was coming.

I should back up and say that the Managua International Airport is really a nice place. It is a very efficient, beautiful modern building and secure. You don’t go through Customs without a security person making sure your luggage tags match each of your pieces of checked luggage.

Immigration was pleasant and only cost $5 each for the entry fee.

Someone is ready (for a tip of course) to help you from any place to any place else. Dollar bills fly out your hands like confetti but you don’t touch a thing.

Los Costeño is way down the end of the complex in the old terminal I suspect. It is busy and crowded so you don’t mess around in the new airport getting lunch and such. First come first served on check in even with a reservation.

Our “skycap” who hauled our luggage stayed with us through check in and made sure we got through the security checkpoint and paid our little fee to go through security. Then we found the bar as is our place in life and ordered some cold beers.

Finally it was time to board our plane and off we flew. I was confused as to our heading when we were flying southwest and towards the ocean. Not having a map with me I didn’t realize that the “ocean” was Lake Nicaragua and the volcano that is in the middle is a hot spot to visit.

We turned to the east and finally arrived on Big Corn Island. A young man was ready to be our taxi driver and we sped off in a car that was old and junky when Samosa was in his heyday.
We paid another fee to get inside the ferry yard where our panga was awaiting us for the 3:30 trip to Little Corn Island. Our bags went into their Tough Stuff Flexible Strength garbage bags which were much admired and sought after. A panga is a good sized boat that held about 40 people and luggage. It had twin, 4 stroke, full fuel Yamahas that just hauled butt.

Then we waited, and we waited and we waited. We watched kids do aerial flips off the fishing boats while they waited or just hung out.

We went to a bar, the Fisherman’s Cove, with a dock hustler named “Terry” who was quite informative about everything except when the boat would leave. Fortunately he did not drink beer and only drank the occasional water. He wanted a tip, not liquids.

Finally; finally, for some reason such as the panga driver’s girlfriend arrived, and after we all paid our fares, donned our life jackets to the approval of the Naval man standing watch, we took off with twin outboards blazing.

Most times at least part of the panga was in the water. At the front of this long, v-hulled boat fitted with formed seats with 2x12 wooden back rests, were three young men that help balance and guide the boat across the ocean, missing reefs poking out.

A rooster tail was a constant to my right elbow. Flexibility in your back is an absolute must as well. We would hit swells and bounce and keep flying along.

When we almost got to Little Corn, as the sun was setting, the water chop dissipated and flattened out and Señor Capitan put the pedal to the metal and our hair stuck straight backwards. Wow, it was like a Cigarette Boat ride with 30 people at that point. Then he wove in and out with a florish and the dock was filled with people who have wondered where the hell the panga ferry has been for 2 hours.

With our arrival, we were met by Betsy from Casa Iguana and Emma, our dive master from Little Corn Divers. Several men with a big wooden wheelbarrow did not seem at all phased by our numerous black plastic bags of checked and carry on luggage.

In fact, they passed us on the trail through mud and jungle like we had cement boots on. If they had been butlers as well they probably would have had us unpacked when we got to our room they were that fast and agile.

Our Casita Grande at Casa Iguana met all my expectations. It was about 12x24 feet with a 6 foot deep deck that went the 24 feet. We had a futon couch and big bed on stilts to make us window screen height. The skeeter net was never needed. We almost needed straps to keep us in the bed when the wind came through the windows. It was divine.

But, more on Casa Iguana and Little Corn Island in my next postcard from Nicaragua.
Coming soon: More on Vietnam and Nicaragua and our upcoming trip to Salt Cay. Someone’s got to do this miserable life and it might as well be me.