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May 13, 2000 | There was only one vacant room at the Hotel Panorama. Marco and Elisa, the Dutch couple with whom I'd shared a taxi ride to this point, glanced at each other in horror over the predicament. Hanging palm fronds... See more » May 13, 2000 | There was only one vacant room at the Hotel Panorama. Marco and Elisa, the Dutch couple with whom I'd shared a taxi ride to this point, glanced at each other in horror over the predicament. Hanging palm fronds brushed softly against the bright yellow and white paint of the pleasant, tiny, eight-unit hotel. A young girl with a straw broom lingered under the cool shade of the porch and awaited our decision while straightening a hammock. Marco and Elisa composed themselves and Elisa said to me, "If you really, really want to stay here, I guess we can find somewhere else." Her eyes, however, begged me to go away. I humbly insisted that Marco and Elisa take the room, then continued by taxi along bumpy roads with deep puddles that had been gouged by tremendous downpours and dried quickly in the hot sun. We drove from hotel to hotel, but there were no rooms at any of the other seven inns. "Too many people in town for the fiesta," said the innkeeper of the 26-unit Bayside Inn, the island's grandest accommodations. At most destinations, "no vacancy" wouldn't necessarily mean a crisis. But here on Corn Island, 45 miles off Nicaragua's eastern coast in the middle of the Caribbean, it presented a special dilemma. When I had exhausted every possible lodging option, my driver dropped me in front of the small government office that housed the only public telephones on the island. I could see the orange sun beginning to set over a blue lagoon, casting shadows off several scattered fishing boats. There wasn't a soul on the beach. I almost began to panic, but standing inside the office with a telephone receiver in my hand, I realized worry was senseless. I was here, and there really wasn't anyone to call anyway. So I went back to the Hotel Panorama and drank beers with Marco and Elisa on their porch. The first thing you need to know about Corn Island is that the airstrip doubles as the main thoroughfare. It is the only paved section of the island. When the planes arrive from Managua, 100 people line the runway to watch. Smiling men grab luggage straight out of the cargo hatch and throw it into taxis. First-time visitors like us just follow along, mouths agape. Gorgeous giant palm trees line the strip. The second thing you need to know is that Corn Island has fallen under the auspices of the Nicaraguan government for many years. Before that, the island was a British colony. You can see the effects of both governments in small but significant ways. Corn Island's "taxis," for instance, are dilapidated Russian surplus jeeps. They were brought here during the Sandinista rule in the 1980s, a subtle hint to the islanders that comrades in Managua were watching. The local language, unlike the Spanish of Nicaragua's interior, is a West Indian dialect of English, which dates back to earlier days of British rule. What Spanish Nicaragua calls "Corn Island" refers to two islands: Great Corn Island is about three and a half miles long with a population of about 2,500. Little Corn Island, relatively uninhabited, is reachable only by boat from Great Corn Island. Before I flew to Corn Island, I'd been told by my Nicaraguan friends that it was "virgin" and completely removed from the rest of the country. I was hopeful it would be uncrowded, since there were still no paved roads that connected the Pacific and Caribbean coasts of Nicaragua. But I was also skeptical, since these same friends had also told me their nation's government was finally stable and, after several weeks in Managua, I'd realized that stable is a relative term. By "virgin," I only hoped my friends meant Corn Island would be a break from the desperate poverty and the danger that lurked throughout the mainland. Next page | Merle Haggard and the shrimp man See less »

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