Nicaragua

Arrived in Managua, the capital...a shit hole, but still not as bad as Guatemala City! Spent ages trying to find the best deal on a hostel even though we were only needing it for one night!!! Spent evening drinking with a guy from Argentina and one from Colombia - really interesting to get all the local knowledge of these countries! But even better when we came to try to book our flights the next morning to the Corn Islands they sorted it all out for us over the phone in spanish (I had tried myself first but got stuck at the first question!!! I do not believe our spanish is getting any better!).

We managed to get on the afternoon flight to the Corn Islands that day, back to the Carribean!!!! The plane arrives at the bigger island and I was most dissappointed to see that our carribean paradise was full of loads of noisy taxis and people hassling you!! We decided to stay one night on Big Corn just to check it out properly. Had interesting experience trying to reach the main town from the airport which is cut off by the runway, wandered though an open gate across the far end of the runway only to be chased away by a military guy jumping out the bushes carrying an AK47!!!!! Eventually worked out that if we waited 30mins the airport closes and you can cross freely - when this happened it looked like something out of a zombie movie people emerging from the bushes on either side!!!!!

Turned out our initial assumption of Big Corn was correct, there were some beautiful white sandy beaches bordered by palm trees and turquoise waters, but not the tranquility we were looking for! So after our short snorkling trip (saw some indisguishable old wrecks and a nurse shark), we took the water taxi over to Little Corn!

The boat broke down several times on the way over so it was dark when we arrived! As gringos we were immediately put in the hands of one of the ´island guides´ - thinking we would be ripped off but with no other choice in the dark we followed him to the hostel!! It turned out that this was the best decision we made....he found us our own cabin on the beach, lots of fellow travellers, hammocks, palm trees - all for just 10$US a night (for both of us!), and we paid him nothing! The hostel was ´Sunrise Paradise´ and our guide was ´Dennis´ - both of which I would recommend to anyone visiting Little Corn!!!

The island is stunning - a nearly deserted carribean paradise, picture post card views!! It turns out this isn´t enough for Chris and I - we get bored very quickly lying around on the beach! But luckily we had Dennis to keep us entertained; chopping down coconuts and then chipping all the bark off so you are left with just the perfect egg shaped white flesh and straw for the milk; organising fishing / snorkling trips; taking us on bush walks to track down avacados, melon, limes, more coconut(...no corn though! Out of season!); as well as cooking ´RonDon´ local fish stew with plantain, coconut and yam! Little Corn is a must for any traveller to Central America!!! So unspoilt, no roads, no cars, no street lighting - in fact you only get electricity half the day!

But the trip must continue and so we left the Corn islands after 6 days and took the flight back to Managua - luckily we managed to get safely out of the city the same day and made it to Granada! A very nice Colonial style town, very laid back and pleasant architecture - such a change considering it´s only 1hr from Managua! Plus the hostel has free internet - hence the rather long post! Will be putting some phtots on soon!