NICARAGUA (Managua & The Corn Islands)

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Monday 1^st May
Another day – another long bus journey. After the relative luxury of Honduras’s Premier Class bus service Hedman Alas, we were a little reticent to change to the Nicaraguan local service of Tica Bus, especially as this was to be one of our longest journeys yet – a mere 10 hours! However we were pleasantly surprised to arrive at the small but clean and efficient bus station and actually depart ½ an hour early for a change. Shame for the people who were expecting it to leave as planned at 9am, but hey we got extra seats J.

Again the journey and even the Honduras/Nicaragua border crossing was relatively uneventful other than an extremely competitive game of travel Monopoly which had our fellow local travellers slightly bemused. Yet again though, the familiar dread of getting mugged as soon as we got off the bus came from reading the Lonely Planet. This time it claimed that 90% of all attacks reported had happened in the vicinity of the Managuan Tica Bus terminal, which also happened to be – you guessed it- the cheapest place to stay in the Capital!

However as we got off the bus we wondered if we had maybe been dropped off at the airport by mistake. The bus station was spotless and modern and even had a luggage carousel to collect your bags from. There were however a horde of touts and potential muggers outside the heavily guarded front door, so after a quick scan of the accommodation recommendations Andy bravely walked the half block to the nearest hostel while I waited inside with the bags and the nice men with guns and batons J. 

Once again, either by luck or misinformation the barrio turned out to be one of the nicest places we had stayed in. The hostel which we can’t recall the name of due to lost records was the cleanest we had ever stayed in if a little on the hot side, but to our horror didn’t allow alcohol consumption on it’s premises!!! Not to worry though, there was a perfectly nice little Nicaraguan run Irish bar directly opposite playing a mixture of latino music and salsa subtly mixed with U2’s greatest hits on constant loop.

We soon came to realise that far from wanting to mug us the locals were quite friendly and we even got serenaded by a local man with a song about Nicaragua which we couldn’t understand. So we hot footed it out of there and found an internet café where we tried to book flights for the next day’s flight to the Corn Islands. After limited success we went back to the Shannon bar and finally staggered off to bed. 

Tuesday 2^nd May
With our flight to Corn Islands leaving at 2pm and still no tickets booked we headed into the city centre to try and find a bank and travel agent. We found a large shopping centre with a couple of ATM’s and more importantly a McDonalds. We were starting to rely on these healthy snacks to keep us going! We eventually found a really helpful travel agent who not only managed to book us onto the Corn Island flight but also booked us tickets to Curacao from Panama via Columbia – a weight of our minds or so we thought…....

After that it was a mad dash back to the hostel to pick up our day bags and head to the airport. Upon arrival we found the La Costena airlines terminal easily enough but were amused and a little worried when we were asked to put our teeny bags on the scales and then weigh ourselves! We wondered if there was a maximum weight before you had to buy two seats J We then got issued the biggest boarding cards we have ever seen and went through to the departure lounge where we realised by the number of people carrying multiple boxes of Pizza Hut pizzas that there was not going to be any fast food joints on the island!

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Largest boarding cards ever....		Once again, a plane to ourselves		Arriving in Big Corn

The plane itself turned out to be not much bigger than the one we flew to Caye Caulker in Belize on and equally as noisy. It stops halfway at the coastal town of Bluefields where everyone bar us disembarked except us. For the second time on our travels we had a plane to a tiny island all to ourselves!

The plane only flies to the bigger island of the Corn Islands, aptly named Big Corn. From there it’s a short but bumpy boat ride over to equally well named Little Corn. We took a short taxi ride from the airport to the dock (a muddy fisherman's wharf – we were extremely glad we had decided to leave our heavy dive bags in Managua) and had just enough time to have some delicious curried ceviche (a mix of raw fish, onion, curry powder and coriander – Cat would love it!) and a couple of cold cervezas.

We were a bit dismayed however to realise that the café had made a tiny artificial pool and captured two nurse sharks and two giant turtles along with other Caribbean fish, we assumed to please the tourists. Next to the pool the local fishermen were unloading literally tones of conch shells that they had been diving for. We must have counted at least 20 scuba tanks that they had used for one trip! We were starting to wonder about the countries eco friendliness and after the disappointment of Utila weren’t expecting great things from the diving either.

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Big Corn Fisherman's Harbour		And, transport to Little Corn :-)

The tiny fisherman’s boat that took us to Little Corn was packed and we were amused to see the locals using the lifejackets they handed out as comfy cushions to minimize the bumpiness! From a distance you could tell that Little Corn was indeed little and as the boat pulled up onto the beach a friendly English girl called Vicky came out to greet us by name, which turned out to be the manager of the dive centre we had made tentative reservations with. The Dive Little Corn shop was right on the beach and is part of the Casa Iguana eco camp which is the largest and nicest of the accommodations available on the island.

After a short trek through the rainforest we came to the camp which consists of about 12 cabins which are rustic and basic to say the least but which have views to die for across the beach and sea. As it was low season and we were staying for a few days the nice American office manager Chelsea, gave us a good deal to stay in one of the Deluxe cabins which meant that you had an en suite toilet and a ‘private’ shower which was basically an outside bucket surrounded by a wooden box!

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The 'Pier' on Little Corn beach	Dive Little Corn dive shop	Lobster 'off' season, on the way to Casa Iguana			Wilderness path to Iguana
		Please ring the tank		Local fruits
Accommodation...	...with a view to die for....	Somewhere to chill out - again

Although we thought the accommodation was a tad expensive at $50US a night for what it was, we were enchanted by the complete wilderness feel and views. The attention to detail was also very well done with a good range of books in each room, nice comfy beds and two hammocks on the veranda. The main lodge was also very well equipped with books, magazines and board games all available on a trust basis which made a refreshing change from many of the hostels we had previously stayed in.

Casa Iguana adopted the same eating style as Casa Del Mundo in Guatemala and all the guests gathered for cocktails at 6.30pm then freshly cooked catch of the day eaten family style on a huge veranda overlooking the sea. The bar was also done on an honesty basis and after just a few days stay we were embarrassed to see that our tab (which were marked up on a whiteboard) was the biggest by far! 

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Shower 'al fresco'		Cameras and hammocks don't mix	That's better		Totem pole at Iguana
Who's coconuts?		Beach bum :-)		Miss Ella's restaurant
	and the food

We met a friendly ‘mature’ couple of American women at dinner, one a writer and the other a lawyer, but both divers, so the next day we all went to check out the dive shop where Vicky and the rest of the crew were extremely friendly and helpful in helping us choose our dive sites. Again as time and money were limited we asked them to take us to their favourite sites which they duly recommended, but which we have since forgotten the names of due to the loss of Andy's Dive Log Book......sorry!

The first dive was a very easy shallow dive around a submerged island of coral. Although not teeming with fish it was a damn site better than Utila so we were pleasantly relieved. We saw a couple of extremely large lobster holed up in a little cave together and two stingray hiding in the sand. With my lack of underwater navigational skills I though it was the same ray, but that we had gone twice around the island!

The next dive was very similar and again shallow. Rob our dive master explained the all the dives were shallow in Little Corn, but that that was a good thing as the nearest decompression chamber was back in Honduras, a good 2 hours by helicopter if you were lucky enough to get one!! Unfortunately we had remembered the camera but forgotten the underwater housing in our rush to pack, so we don’t have any photos of any of the dives L. 

The next day we decided to take it easy and only do one dive, this one was a gentle drift and as we descended into a hollow in the coral I spotted a large shark. I excitedly pointed and gave the ‘big effing shark’ signal to the rest of our group as it dispread into a crevice. By the time the rest of the group caught up it came out again but had magically transformed into a giant grouper.  As everyone started laughing at me and I gave myself a mental note to check my eyesight the shark appeared again from the other side, and it was my turn to smile! After that we gently floated over a bed of hard coral with lots of small hollows and a couple of swim throughs until we came to the boat’s anchor point. Swimming around the coral were a huge shoal of large barracuda, and despite our American companions nervousness, showed absolutely no interest in us whatsoever.

Our final and favourite dive was called Shark point and we laughed as we knew from experience that anything called Shark …. would mean we wouldn’t see a single shark, despite Robs protests to the contrary. Sure enough, guess what? Yup, no sharks.

As with many of our stays in these little corners of paradise tucked out of the way of mainstream tourism, it was unfortunately time to move one again. This time onward bound to Costa Rica and the promise of active volcanoes, white water rafting and relative civilisation. So the next day after a final afternoon eating conch and shrimps from Miss Ella's beach restaurant donw the beach from Casa Iguana we awaited our boat to take us back to Big Corn and in turn back to Managua.

Oh life is hard..........next stop Costa Rica.

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Obligatory guest shot for the Guest Book....	Chelsea	Lobster Creels		Yes, yet another sunset.....
	Total grid lock man

(Traveller’s notes:......from this point onwards we have lost all of our records of travel and accommodation costs. So big apologies to anyone who's actually using this travel journal for planning their travels.......more info on this to follow....)

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