CORN ISLANDS

The Corn Islands, what can I say! We were there on Little Corn for a week, and were hectically busy- in the mornings we'd have breakfast then lie in the hammocks looking at the sea. After lunch we'd swim in the sea looking back at the hammocks. In the evenings we'd sit on the beach watching the stars. If we were feeling particularly athletic, there were coconuts and mangoes lying everywhere, but you had to reach down and pick them up yourself. It was a tough week. Well deserved too, as getting there had been an exercise of patience, sleeplessness, grease, dirt, sunburn, oceans and dolphins. Ok, so it wasn't all bad.

From Leon we'd taken a 2 hour bus to the capital of Managua, waiting around 6 hours until 9pm when the express bus to El Rama left. The bus station was in a bit of a shifty part of town, and we had almost no money (were waiting till Rama to get some out), so we found a wee bar, settled in and played cards while drinking glass bottles of coke. 'Express' buses aren't exactly like the Intercity/Greyhound style ones you'd find back home in fact most of them look pretty similar to the infamous chicken buses of Latin America (google it, they're these crazy old school buses from the maybe 70s USA school era, brought down South and put to use as public transport…and the official amount of people allowed inside is generally tripled--hey, if they're high enough for someone to sit on someone else's shoulders, make use of the fact!). The express part just meant that it sort of went straight to El Rama without stopping to pick up random people at bus stops or roadside spaces. The driver was a bit of a hip hop fan, as the bus pulled out of the station he let rip with the soundz, full blast over the speakers. Party time in on the El Rama Express! I don't think that he had his own speakers, and maybe needed help staying awake as throughout the 6 hour drive music would scream out at full volume for 20-30 minutes then go quiet, sometimes for nearly an hour. I had speakers right above me (we were in the last two seats at the back) and it was doing my head in.

Officially the bus was supposed to stop between 10 and 11 somewhere for people to get dinner… for whatever reason, around 11.30 we pulled up at a little roadside diner which was packed. The driver let us off saying be back in 20 minutes. 2 minutes later the assistant starting screaming at everyone to get back on the bus as it was leaving! I think maybe 1 person had managed to get something, a couple had fitted a loo break in but the rest of us were in a state. We drove on. And on. About 1am or so, we pulled up again at another diner, this time for half an hour. Possibly. Everyone woke up and we all piled out making beelines for the loos again. In addition to the fast food style of cuisine inside the diner, there were also quite a few night owls who had set up food stalls along the road (there were probably 5 or 6 buses there, so quite busy) and were doing a roaring trade.

A couple of quesidillas & cold drinks later and we were back on the road. During the mad dash for the door at the start of the break I'd managed to unfortunately- and completely by accident- pull the wires out of both the rear speakers, meaning they had no sound coming out. It was a shame, although I'm told very easily fixed by simply plugging the wire back in.

We got into El Rama around 3 in the morning, pretty shattered. I think it used to be that you could stay on the bus until the pangas (little dingy ferry boats) started going at 6, but for whatever reason everyone was kicked off. The docks were right there so we settled in for some kind of rest…ha, what a joke as there were kids, dogs, chickens, kids and people everywhere and no one seemed to realise that most people want to sleep at 3am.

Ah, travel plans. To get to the Corn Islands there were 2 options. The fastest and most expensive was to fly. From Managua to Big Corn Island return you were looking at about US$180 per person and would take around an hour, or from Bluefields perhaps US$160pp, with a 20 minute flight. The far far cheaper and a hell of a lot longer was the one we were doing. 5-6 hour bus from Managua to a river port town called El Rama, then from there a small boat (30ish people squished together) 90 minutes downriver to the town of Bluefields. There are no roads into Bluefields though there are roads once you get there- all cars a brought downriver from Rama on barges. From there you take a larger ferry another 5-6 hours out to sea, eventually arriving into Big Corn early afternoon. Big Corn to Little Corn Islands is another panga ride, takes about 30 minutes. Big Corn is the more popular of the two with lots of people staying there but reports were that Little Corn was better. It can be done all on the same day (though the ferries from the mainland to the islands only leave on Wednesdays) but we'd decided to get to Bluefields on Tuesday then across on the Wednesday.

So, 6am Tuesday finally arrives and we head down to the wharf to get the panga down to Bluefields. Oops, turns out we needed to go to the local panga office and register, and they'd tell us which panga to go on. It would have been nice if they'd told us that back in Managua when we'd bought the bus/panga combo but never mind, we were on the way…eventually. Panga 6 was finally ready to depart and we tootled downriver for an hour and a half, arriving into this dusty rank decrepit shanty town, which turned out to be Bluefields (in fairness to Bluefields, Rama was a lot mankier). Getting off the pangas and heading into town we were met by a gentleman who introduced himself as Spicer. Spicer took us to a hostel that we'd decided to stay at then asked for $5 for his troubles. Charming. We gave him a couple of bucks and he wandered off, promising to be back the next morning around 8 to 'help' us get ferry tickets. The guy had chatted at us for the whole time he was there, so hadn't realised I spoke the fricking language and that we were both pretty fine as we were.

Bluefields. Well we were there from midmorning Tuesday for around 24 hours. It probably is a nice enough place but we were craving the sandy coconut-palmed shores of the Islands so any charm it had was fairly lost on us.

The tickets for the boats were sold on the same day as sailing and we'd already found out the sales desk opened from 7am for a 9amish sailing. Getting up nice and early we got down to the wharf just before 7 and along with a few locals waited for the Nice Lady to start selling tickets. Eventually we got them and went back to the hostel to get our backpacks and check out…keeping eyes open for Spicer along the way. Boarding the ferry you could sit inside where it was all stuffy and hot, or outside along the side benches where it was sea-breeze and hot. In the hope of not getting sea sick, we--well, me actually- chose the outside option. What a farce, after everyone was sitting down in their places and the pangas from Rama arrived, more tourists and locals jumped on. 9am arrived and everyone was asked to get off the boat, line up, and get back on showing their tickets and getting lifejackets along the way. Why they couldn't do that in the first place will remain a mystery through the ages.

From Bluefields we headed to another port town called El Bluff, staying there for a bit to load and unload stuff, then it was (finally!) out to open sea and East towards the Islands. I managed to get a bit of sleep in but did wake up when it started to pour down. Tarpolines were lowered for the duration of the shower before the sun came out again. Highlight of the trip- Dolphins! Being a Kiwi, dolphins are nothing new to me, having seen and swum with them, but it's always a buzz to see them and everyone on the ship was trying to spot them.

Big Corn Island was spotted in the distance and as we came closer you could see the trees, beaches, boats, houses and people, it looked stunning. We docked about 2.30 and there was a mad cacophony as people jumped off the ferry, some meeting friends or family, others delivering packages and still others like us, just there for a holiday. The panga to Little Corn would be leaving at 4pm- we had been thinking the ferry would arrive later and that we'd need to spend a night on Big Corn but with the timing we decided to just head over and see if we could check in a day early!

Taking the panga across to Little Corn was cool- small boat, open sea, waves. Sadly no dolphins this part but still awesome fun! We had booked a week at the Little Corn Beach and Bungalows on the North Eastern side of the island (sea breezes guaranteed, helping to keep mozzies and humidity to a minimum) and were quite chuffed to see some guys with a sign for them on the wharf, waiting for other tourists. We explained that we were a day early but would it be ok to start our 7 nights that day. The gents got on their walkie-talkies and checked, and no worries. They even had a cart so we didn't have to carry our backpacks. After everyone had got off the panga, it turned out that the people they were waiting for weren't on it (perhaps also hadn't realised you need to register for a panga in Rama, we think maybe they missed the Bluefields-Islands ferry. b*****).

After a good 10-15 minutes haul across the island, over clay tracks, through jungle and across sand, we arrived in paradise. Our accommodation was a group of bungalows and cabins either on the beach or just off it, hammocks, cocktails, food and cold beer. We were in the cheaper option of a bungalow with bathroom shared by one other room, and it was gorgeous. The linen and towels were pristine white, god knows how they keep them clean 'cause you get sand and dust everywhere.

The week was brilliant. We went snorkelling out on the reef- I can fully recommend the Olympus TG820 camera as it worked a treat underwater and in the sand. On the reef were thousands of different types of fish, we even saw a reef shark and stingrays. Towards the end of the 2.5 hours trip the boat took us to a spot where there is a lovely group of 5 or 6 hammerhead sharks living. Tragically there had been rain overnight and the water was quite murky and not ideal for shark spotting, so we weren't able to do that. (Truly, heartbroken). So it was back to the beach and hammocks.

An island specialty is 'Rondon', or 'Run down' depending how you say it. The islanders are fabulous people- English is sort of their first language but it's got such a Jamaican/Caribbean accent you can't always understand it. Anyway Rondon is a seafood/potato-like-tubor type of thing. The guys at the restaurant where we were staying recommended a place in the village, Brigettes, as the best place on the island for it. You have to order it a day in advance (gives them time to pop down to the sea and grab a lobster and a few fish you know) so we organised it for dinner the next night. Oh my god, the stuff was delicious! We'd ordered one rondon and one seafood chowder sort of thing- I took photos of the plates. Both me and Nick enjoy a good meal and can put away a lot of food but we just couldn't finish the dishes. They had cost us a whopping 460 Nicaraguan cordobas- before you freak out, that's about US$20- and even though I'm not the world's biggest seafood fan, this food was superb. AAarrgh, I want some rondon now!

One of the days we were there we headed up to the lookout tower- had meant to be a lighthouse but for whatever reason they'd built the tower, put in part of the light fitting, then just left it. Takes a couple miutes to climb up the ladder but definitely worth the view.

The day before we left there was a mammoth storm- thunder loud enough to wake you up at night and soaking rain. Of course like all good nutters, after breakfast that morning we went for a swim, it was gorgeous!

Sadly, the storm passed which meant we didn't have any excuse to stay longer. Wednesday a week after we'd arrived, we packed up and headed to the village to catch the panga back to Big Corn. There were ferries leaving on Saturday night which we were originally going take, but it turned out that there was a ship leaving that night-not a ferry as such, more of a small cargo ship that also took passengers hardy enough to give it a whirl. We were feeling time slipping away so were giving it a go. Hours and hours out of port, close to the mainland and in the rain, the bloody thing broke down. They did get it going after 5 minutes of bashing the engine with a hammer though so all well that ends well, etc.

We got into Bluefields in the early morning, and got a panga/bus combo back to Managua. The panga broke down three times heading upriver, cutting it fine to get to the bus in time (supposed to leave at 9…we got there about 8.59….happily no one keeps to schedules anyway there, so it probably wouldn't have mattered hugely if we had been a bit later). Getting into Managua many hours later we continued on our mad-cap dash across the country, and caught a shuttle straight down to the city of Granada where we would stay for a few days before heading south again towards Panama.

GRANADA

Ok, I think Nick's getting tetchy 'cause I'm still on the computer and he wants to watch the Tudors so I'll race through the last part of Nicaragua we went to, Granada.

Don't go there, go to Leon instead. The people were ruder on the most part, the prices were more expensive for less product, and it had a lake which smelled very bad. Best part though is we were there for- wait for it- a festival! It's called the Hipica, and celebrates the cowboys and horse riders who helped create and run the land. Huge parade of horses, good fun and I took many many equine piccies.

We were in Granada about 3 nights then started the mentally crazy long trip south to Panama. OK, I'll go post this saga and upload some pretty pretty photos, then get you updated on that part!