Paradise Found and paradise lost
Yesterday, we took a bus bound from Granada to the capital city of Managua in hopes of catching a short flight to Big Corn Island on the Caribbean coast. The airport itself is not much more than a giant air-conditioned hanger with a wall of glass on one side, but at least the last minute decision was not in vain as there were tickets available. Just to show how surprising adventure travel can be some times, we each got weighed individually along with our luggage. The reason didn’t seem obvious until we walked onto the runway and saw the “plane” that was literally about the size of two taxis. The interior fitted exactly 10 passengers in total, plus a crew of two. Despite its small size, the flight was not too rough and we touched down an hour later on Big Corn Island. We literally walked across the runway to get to the main road to reach hotel Beach View situated right on the turquoise waters of the beach. For $5 a night, you can’t get a better deal with wind-swept beaches.
The objective was to rest up for a night and then head to Little Corn island (population 700) a short distance away. Early this morning we boarded a boat (which, incidentally, was bigger than the plane yesterday) for Little Corn. This had to be one of the more death-defying rides I’ve been on: the boat was completely over-laden with cargo and passengers, listing to the left by 15 degrees; what’s more, as soon as we headed away form the island, the swells grew to 10-12 feet plus… rocking the boat with severe jolts and repeatedly slamming us into the water. 30 minutes of this was better than any possible roller coaster ride.
After docking and checking in to the hostel, I made a bee-line pass thick citrus and mango forests for the pristine waters on the north side of tiny Little Corn (one a can walk the entire rim of the island in less than 1.5 hours). After swimming in what seemed like untainted waters, I resolved to gather coconuts from the abundant trees flanking the beaches. Sadly, walking the coastline, its easy to spot the accumulated junk and plastic flotsam that have washed ashore from the ocean – there is scarce a place now in the world where the influence of humans has yet to despoil the natural beauty. In a sense, all that is beautiful will be lost to the ages soon as tourism and commercialism eventually trample on paradise … but what remains yet is so beautiful.
For the next few days, I relished in the natural beauty of the island and mingled with the local people, most of whom are descendants of Caribbean settlers and speak predominantly Creole and English. Life is really relaxed here, such that even walking fast seems to disturb the peace. On one occasion, walking back from gathering mangos, I passed a fragrant scent and followed its trail to a middle age woman selling freshly baked coconut bread from her home. After sampling a bite, I asked “What does it take to make this?”, to which she simply replied in a thick Creole accent “Ohhhh, only a lot of patience.”