Big Corn Island

2nd February 2015

A nice picture of the sunset on our first night here

Corn island, so far seems to be a fairly expensive Carribean place. It's not the backpacker undiscovered haven I was looking for...hotels range from $10 to $35 a night (or more), the food is fairly expensive and atleast on Big Corn Island I haven't found that peaceful spot. It is just packed full of Americans, and the restaurants here have nurse sharks as their pets in the shallow and pools outside their restaurants, horrible. The whole Island is surrounded by a road, so when you are sat on the beach, your basically sat next to the road. Apparently Little corn is more beautiful, but also much more expensive (note from the future, it isn't much more expensive at all, that's just what they say in Big Corn, I'm staying in a place for $12 a night with a kitchen)...people quoted me $75 (but that's only for luxury cabins which is way more than I want to or can afford). Atleast on Big Corn I'm sharing with the Danish in a hotel room, we have two double beds, so it's cosy and works out at $6 each, so I'm happy. 

However, despite the cost, it's all about the diving here. This place is apparently one of the best places to dive in Nicaragua, particularly a place called blowing rock, the guy at the dive school said that is spectacular. (Note from the future, it wasn't that good, the waves were too high and the visibility majorly affected, I've seen a lot more amazing stuff in the shallow Reefs around Little Corn)

 

3rd February 2015

So despite my misgivings about this place I actually had a good day. I woke up super early and walked round the Island to the dive school where I had a good chat with one if the instructors, a Dutch guy, about Holland, Diving, Koh Tai (where he trained), and he advised me to do my training in a smaller school not a big diving factory. Also, we booked a trip to blowing rock some islands 27km off the coast of Big Corn (and we are already pretty remote here too) so we should see some large pelagics, hopefully some sharks, large rays. I hope the weather's calm and the visibility is good!

We found some beautiful reefs as well literally just off the beach, so if that's anything to go by I think going further out we should find something more special!

The people you meet

What I love when I travel is the people and the stories they tell. Ashley said they should have sent me with a Mic, so I could do some recordings about local people for the BBC World service! I'm trying to convince him I have recording equipment to do that with because it was only today I was talking to a lady who has lived on Corn Island her whole life, and she was telling me stories of how the Island has changed. Basically Corn island is well know for where the cocaine trade from Colombia goes through, infact the whole of central America is, but along with that has come violence. She was telling me how only recently a guy had his throat cut round an area I walked through at night last night! But along with the violence has come money from philanthropic drug dealers who have built, baseball fields, airports etc when the Nicaraguan government has all but ignored the Carribean coast...

And then the other day, when I had my detour from El Rama to Pearl Lagoon, which was a total waste of time and just rubbish by the way! I met an anthropologist who was living with one of the Indigenous Indian Miskito tribes, in a place called Kahkabila (reachable only by boat from Pearl Lagoon). He'd been sent out there as part of a study to see how electricity has changed there lifestyles. How fascinating it would be for me to get a chance to interview and meet some of these people for the World Service. If there's one thing I like doing more its profiling people and find out what it is to live in all far flung places in the world, and then educate and show people.