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Life, leisure in Corn Islands

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It's not easy getting to one of the Caribbean's best-kept secrets. But if you can survive an all night bus and boat ride or a hair-raising flight in a 12-seat puddle jumper, you'll be rewarded with the Caribbean ideal: Long... See more » It's not easy getting to one of the Caribbean's best-kept secrets. But if you can survive an all night bus and boat ride or a hair-raising flight in a 12-seat puddle jumper, you'll be rewarded with the Caribbean ideal: Long stretches of empty beaches, towering coconut trees, crystalline water and lobsters plucked from the sea. I have long been obsessed with Nicaragua's Corn Islands, a pair of former pirate lairs 18 miles apart and just off Nicaragua's Atlantic coast. They are so remote as to be almost country-less only recently have the islands been really integrated into the rest of Nicaragua. A Caribbean-inflected English is as common as Spanish since the islands' inhabitants are a blend of descendants of African slaves and Miskito Indians. The remoteness has left the islands unspoiled Big Corn has 8,000 residents; Little Corn just 500 inhabitants. There are no all-inclusive mega-resorts and the beaches are as likely to be filled with locals as with tourists. It's easy to find yourself the only soul on a secluded white-sand beach just a few steps from your cabana or hammock. But as tourists and investors increasingly discover Nicaragua as a cheap and safe vacation spot, the Corn Islands stand on the cusp of development that could bring an end to this Eden-like existence. My wife and I had hoped to visit the Corn Islands on our honeymoon last year, but decided against it when we realized how logistically challenging it is to get there. After pulling off a 200-person wedding on the Mexican border, we wanted a worry-free escape, so we saved the Corn Islands for another time. When we finally arrived in Nicaragua last September, we chose the more expensive, but infinitely quicker mode of arrival: plane. By land it's a harrowing ride over what one guidebook calls "one of the worst roads in the country" and then two long boat rides to the islands, which sit 43 miles offshore. As our tiny plane dipped and jumped in the air currents over Big Corn Island, we caught sight of the main draw: pristine beaches and turquoise waters. Our accommodations at the Paraiso Club hotel were typical of the Corn Islands a reed-covered cabana nestled in the tropical forest hugging the coastline. While the lodgings are a little rougher than your average resort, the prices make up for it. You can find beachside cabanas for $30 or $40 a night and the most expensive places weren't more than $80. Our fellow travelers were not your typical tourists. Our hotel companions included a Canadian expat building power plants in Honduras, a British motorcycle journalist and a Spanish sculptor who always wore white robes. By evening the motley group would gather at the hotel bar, sipping pina coladas made from fresh pineapple and coconuts and eating seafood caught hours earlier. By day we hunted for empty stretches of beach and more seafood. The residents of Corn Islands live largely from fishing. We ate Caribbean-style Yellowtail Snapper in a coconut cream sauce that left us with an afterglow, and ultra-fresh shrimp that snapped like green beans. The islands are famous for their lobster, but a recent rash of light winds had made them scarcer than usual, the locals said. We managed to score two fat tails for $15, considerably more than the usual price. Caribbean lobsters are different from their Maine counterparts: they lack claws, but have meatier tails. Modest, brightly colored wooden houses dotted the beach, but we wondered how long they would survive once the big resorts discovered the place. Walking through neighborhood streets (unpaved roads of sand), we heard groups of men bantering in a Jamaican-like patois and rapid, Cuban-style Spanish. Teenagers switched easily from one language to the next, and my wife and I laughed at how similar it was (at least linguistically) to the Texas-Mexico border. Curiously, the most popular music on the island appeared to be country-and-western (reggaeton a blend of Jamaican reggae and Latin American hip-hop was a close second). At first I thought the Nashville sound was just for the benefit of the visitors See less »

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corn islands, nicaragua

Life, leisure in Corn Islands

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