Escape to Corn Island(s)

Erik's entry: Too much agressive panhandling and too much heat/transit strike forced us to make a desperate plan to get out of Granada. We hired a car to drive us to the airport, and bought tickets out to the Corn Islands, Nicaragua's little piece of Caribbean island culture. It actually wasn't that expensive in the end, though we'd originally planned to bus/ferry our way to the islands, which takes about 1 1/2 days and costs about 1/2 the price of flying. Transit strikes can be quite useful excuses to spoil oneself a little...

The flight was easy, with a short, 5 minute layover in Bluefields. Big Corn Island has one paved road which runs the periphery of the island. A cab from anywhere to anywhere costs about $.60/person, and you can walk the entire island in 2-3 hours, that is if you can hold up that long in the heat/humidity. (There are plenty of places to get a cold drink along the way.) We stayed the first night in Sweet Dreams, which unfortunately was a misnomer. The bed was uncomfortable, and I had to do battle with a huge water bug in the bathroom in the middle of the night.

The next day, I was off for some scuba diving in the calm, clear waters. Talor took a walk to the north end of the island, which is less inhabited and gets a stronger, steadier breeze. The diving with Nautilus Diver Center was excellent (if you go here to dive, make sure to pay the extra money and go out to "blowing rock" - it's well worth it.) Meanwhile, Talor had scoped out a good number of the hotels on the island and suggested we stay at Ike's Place (AKA Cabanas Vientos del Norte.) Ike Siu is Nicaragua/Chinese, and has been living on the island most of his life. His cabanas are simple, but very clean, with A/C. He also supplies you with a little coffee maker and very nice coffee to go in it, a big bonus for us, as we've been getting up at around 6am each day and having to wait an hour or two until cafes opened to get our fix. The biggest bonus of Ike's Place, though, is Ike Siu himself. He is one of the nicest, most generous hosts we've met in our travels. Nothing is too much trouble for him, and he knows everything about the island. He's also very well respected on the island, and throwing his name around can open doors sometimes.

Unfortunately, the one thing that Ike couldn't hook us up with was a steady supply of electricity and water. They were changing over generators on the island, and the power would go out for hours or days at a time. And without power, the water failed to work as well. No AC, no fan, no shower, and at the same time the nice north winds quit on us as well. After trying to grit it out for a few days, we finally gave up and headed to Little Corn Island. Ike Siu did right by us, though, and gave us a healthy discount for the inconvenience and even drove us to the port to get the panga (mini ferry) over to Little Corn.