A Tropical Paradise
Trip Start
Nov 11, 2008
1
28
31
Trip End
Ongoing
Little Corn Island, Nicaragua
Friday, April 3, 2009
We spent nine days on Little Corn and became very lazy, as so many people do. We spend most of ours days lying on the beach or in hammocks and swimming in the water. We checked out the dive shops and found out that we get a discount for being Divemasters, so we planned on spring for 2 dives each at $28USD apiece. The first dive we did was to a site called Yellowtail. Because we were only able to do two dives, we asked around to find out which were the best sites and they all said yellowtail was awesome. We thought it was horrible! It was such a bummer! We saw a total of two fish and the site itself was flat and boring! It was such a disappointment! We were so worried that we would be disappointed on our second dive as well that we cancelled it not wanted to waste any more money. You win some and you lose some.
On one of the days we walked around to the north side of the island and swam out to a bouy where we did some snorkeling. It was much better than our dive. There was a great little reef with lots of healthy coral and fish. We also saw a barracuda, and sting ray, an eagle ray, and a nurse shark! All that for the price of nothing! And only about 20 metres of the shore! I did however, get attacked by a Remora! Remoras are the little cleaner fish you see attached to sharks. This guy was cleaning the Nurse shark when he saw me. I saw the thought go through his little head right before he started swimming at me. Then the little bugger tried to attach to my belly and I started screaming through my snorkel as I tried to push it away. Meanwhile, I can hear Rikki laughing hysterically through his snorkel and not doing a thing to help me! Eventually the little guy swam away and attached himself to a big parrot fish.
We had a few spots we liked to go to. The cheapest comedor on the island was called Alfonzo's and had good plates of food for about $5. We went there pretty often. When we wanted seafood we went to Bridgettes, which is another comedor that had the cheapest garlic shrimp for $8 a plate. (The island was still really expensive for food.) There was plenty of Coconut bread around, but the best and cheapest was at the pink house for $1. We used it to make the most delicious French toast in the mornings. And now for my favorite thing on the island: I called him, The Pineapple Man. No, he didn't sell pineapples. He sold these little pastries filled with pineapple goodness. They were pricey at $1.30 each, but I was addicted. I even got a free one on my birthday cause I was such a loyal Gringo.
And now for my Birthday! I turned 22 on March 21st. Rikki woke up early and made me my favorite breakfast - Homemade Hashbrowns! and some eggs and stuff. But the best part was that he managed to find me a little jar of mayo. If anyone knows me, they would know that jar of mayo is like 10 cherries on top! He even found two pink balloons! We signed up for a $10 snorkel trip to a shallow dive site called White Holes. It was about 9m deep and was great for us to practice our free diving. We saw loads of nurse sharks, some giant parrot fish, trigger fish, barracuda, and lots of other marine life. It was a great trip. Much better than the dive we went on. That afternoon we took it easy, reading in hammocks and swimming in the water. For dinner we splurged on this fancy restaurant that everyone raved about. I got lobster and Rikki got shrimp and we both discovered we don't like fancy seafood and we especially don't like fancy seafood that costs $15 a plate! It was still a really nice dinner though, the beer was great! Unfortunately there were no parties or anything going on, so we went for a nice walk on the beach where you get an incredible view of the stars. It was a great 22nd birthday!
The day after my birthday it was time to go. We asked so many people about catching a boat to Bluefields and once again, no one had a straight answer. We finally decided Sunday (the 22nd) was most likely the day of departure because more people said Sunday than Saturday, so we took the 4pm panga to Big Corn and started asking the cargo boats where they were going. We found one that was leaving that night and met an American couple from North Carolina who would be taking the boat with us.
The boat left at 11pm and would arrive at a place called the Bluff at 4:30am. We slept on the top deck on some cardboard boxes and used our backpacks as pillows and each other for cushioning and warmth. It was a blast! When we arrived at the Bluff, it was still dark out. We walked around to another dock and caught a panga to Bluefields. It ripped! They had a 250hp engine on this light skiff and we flew across the water smashing our asses on the seats with every bump. We did however, have a very nice view of the sunrise which was pretty much up by the time we pulled up to the dock in Bluefields. From there we caught another panga that took us down the river to Rama where we caught a direct bus to Managua where we caught another bus that got us to Granada at 4pm. It only 24hours of straight travel, but we made it!
