13/11/2012 - 16/11/2012 - A Little Corny

The view from the Casa Iguana lodge

Big Corn - big deal...

The view from just outside Managua - the volcano you
can see in the background is what we walked round
before leaving Granada

Great news – buses from San Juan left on the hour at 5am, 6am and 7am. An early start was in order then! After having our wallets emptied (who ever heard of needing to buy a ticket for your bag that cost exactly the same as it did for you to travel?), we were ushered off the bus at the earliest opportunity and it only took a minute for us to decide that Managua was a hole and therefore we were better placed heading to the security of the airport.

Little Corn from the pier

Not much of a beach to speak of,
but didn't stop the relaxation!

A massive boarding pass and couple of hours of delays later, and we were in the air heading to Big Corn. The driver picked up on our panic after landing that we were too late to get the ferry across to Little Corn, and sped us across the island. The trip across, primarily in the dark, was a scary affair – only seeing an outline of the wall of water in front seconds before it was upon you was an adrenaline rush we didn’t expect, that’s for sure. Tony had hand cramp for the following 24 hours after holding on so tight to the side!

A rough ending to another day...

Hmmm - choices!

The next 2 ½ days were island bliss – we’d timed the trip perfectly as it had been raining for a week solid prior to our arrival then started shelling it down again on the morning we left. Unfortunately, the high winds meant that we couldn’t dive on one side of the island where the more exciting stuff lay, and on the 3 dives we did we missed out on the nurse sharks and dolphins that were in the area. That said, we enjoyed diving in decent coral again, and took in a nice turtle (hadn’t seen enough of them lately!), lots of lobsters, a few fun nudibranch and lots of colourful reef fish. We also met Cynthia and Ben, a lovely couple from Boston who inspired us with some of their travelling stories – from snorkelling with humpback whales to searching for mountain gorillas – given us some headaches of where to head to next!

We weren't the only ones enjoying
the lovely sunsets!

Getting used to this...

Despite the deteriorating weather, could have spent a lot more time here, away from the hustle and bustle of city life (no roads on Little Corn). Thanks Roon-dogg for a great recommendation and all your CA advice, much appreciated.

On the road out of Casa Iguana

Hardest choice of the day = which beach to choose!

The boat ride back wasn’t half as choppy, but instead we had torrential rain to contend with. The Nicaraguan solution? A plastic sheet over the passengers heads, held by unlucky passengers on the end (yep – you guessed it – a perfect job for Tony!). On getting a taxi back on Big Corn (note that just because other westerners are hanging around doesn’t mean they’re also waiting for a taxi!), we must have picked up and dropped off 20% of the islands population before we were finally delivered to the airport for the flight back to Managua…

Boarding passes that needed to be seen to be believed!

Imagine this view, with a pink sky

Key Learnings:

1. Always test a snorkel before hiring – realising that you can’t breathe through it once you’re committed results in large quantities of seawater being drunk.

In fact, a sky like this -
thanks for the great lake
shot buddy!

2. Watch your step at night – roots across the path have the tendency to split big toes open. It was a slight dampener for our romantic lobster dinner with Annaliza having her blood pressure checked by the owner after nearly fainting!

3. Always have your camera on you when travelling (not sure how we’d not figured that out yet!), and be specific to fellow travellers what you want a photo of – after seeing an amazing sunset over the Ometepe volcanoes on the flight back from Big Corn and handing over the iphone to passengers on the right side of the plane, we were passed back some lovely lake shots…