After spending a hot night in Bluefields, we took an early boat to the Big Corn Island. Well, early it was meant to be but eventually we departed something like 2 hours later than previously scheduled. Nothing surprising somehow for when we arrived at the harbour a chaotic crowd was still busy unloading the ship and we could already see all the trucks waiting on the pier to be emptied… In total, we had to wait in the building up heat for about two hours. Then the real trip began! The ship was not really crowded but the people semt to enjoy spreading everywhere they could, and especially next to us, while we already had so little space for our tiny butts!... But that was quite fun watching the locals talking in a language we could actually hardly understand, eating fried chicken from tiny plastic plates, smoking cigarettes after cigarettes and eventually throwing all their garbage over board with a total clear conscience. The sea was quiet but somehow I felt that my stomach was not really enjoying being moved up and down and I really had to focus pretty hard not to give a miserable show of myself once again ;-)
And then we stopped. And another boat tied itself to ours. And the crew of that boat jumped on our ship and started attacking two gigantic piles of plastic crates placed on our boat. Gooooooooood! it took ages, the end of days and another fishing boat before the guys were ready unpacking. At that point I thought that my bottom was going to turn into wood and I did not know if I had to lay or sit on my inflatable little cushion!...
But the most terrible thing of it all, was not the heat, the sea sickness, the pain in my a… nor this old lady preaching the Holy word and trying to kick us out of the wooden bench we were sitting on - no, no, no, no, nononono that was… the blaring music turning in a loop for about 6 hours! …And what a music!... The nightmare of the 80’s covered by absolutely unknown artists, well… rather karaoke fanatics, trying to imitate Madonna and her famous Papa Don’t Preach, Wham and Careless Whispers, Cindy Lauper, and even, EVEN, Bonnie Tyler! … We were already physically sore, but that really gave us the feeling that we were right on the way to Hell!...
Fortunately, we were to-ta-lly wrong!
When we arrived in Big Corn we were amazed by the tranquility of the island. Somehow we had the impression that we were the only tourists left, the ones who had shared our misery on the ship already heading with a speed boat to the other island a few miles away. We took a taxi and arrived in a hotel where we were welcome by a hudge lady fitting all the clichés of the Caribbean! - Big mouth, big heart and biiiiiig thighs all concentrated in one lovely person! But instead of the Beach View we were promised by our guide book, our room was facing a pretty dull dirt road and it was really, really hot.
We woke up the next morning early enough to walk along the only path around the island but by 8 O’ Clock we were already sweating, panting and zigzagging between the shade of the trees to escape from the blazing sun. After awhile we just realised there was no point in being cooked to the bones so we simply decided to do like the very wise locals do, that is ,to take it tranquilo for the rest of the day…
When we came back to our hotel we met the other guests lucky enough to stay on the beach side and were told by that we might get a better room facing the sea the next morning. After one week spent in Nicaragua followed by a really annoying person (…) I was really happy to see that very nice people had also chosen to visit this part of the world. Rose, Lisa, Ian and Linda quickly joined us to enjoy all the little pleasures offered by this lovely island. They showed us where to get the best food –which was a real relief from the typical fried rice and beans we had been eating for one week – and we spent hours talking and making plans for our next move. After two days we eventually got a nice room right in front of the turquoise blue ocean and we could sit for hours contemplating the amazing view, realising once again how lucky we were to be there… We went a few times to a secluded beach bordered by a little restaurant playing the music we have at home (!) –groovy and smooooooth- appropriately called “Café del mar”.
There were lots of beautiful kids swimming in the shallow clear blue sea and soon enough Stef and I found out that they were fond of us! Stef ended up having a few ebony children hanging on to his back who wanted to be lifted up in the air and thrown in the sea, and I was busy playing with Johnny and Judy who were eager to show me all their tricks. Still, we managed to watch the sun going down on the horizon, sitting on the bottom of the warm sea, thinking about our friends with whom we would have liked to share this very lovely and special moment. “Another day in Paradise”…
We came back a few times to the beach and realised that the kids were getting more attached to us. Johnny and Judy, whose mother was running the restaurant, told us terrible stories about their father who was found dead, cut in two with a machete… The children were absolutely cute but looked so sad and serious every now and then, and when Johnny asked me if I loved him, oooh, I felt my heart splitting into pieces. It was not the right moment to get too emotionally involved with a child who will never understand why, one day, we will no longer show up… On the Saturday night we went to the Reggae Dance Hall of Big Corn and saw some really sexy dancing there! Waaaaaooooooh! All these black ladies shaking their ass in all directions in the most natural way, glued to the body of their partners without even looking into their eyes! That was grand! We thought we were part of a video of some rapgangsta! Even better of course was the fact that we really got the Caribbean feeling! All these bodies faking sexual intercourse, right there on the dance floor, that was simply amazing and great to watch. The only down side of it was that we felt pretty uncomfortable shaking everything we could while the other dancers could move so naturally well. But, I guess I managed somehow for a guy kept on asking me to dance with him, and after awhile, I surrendered. That was…a very nice experience, but somehow I wondered a few times how far I should allow my partner to go… that was very, very “hot!” dancing…!!!Stef came a few times to my rescue that night and had to do some kind of “territory pissing” around me ;-) Women! Caribbean blood is hot! hot! hot! just be sure you don’t get burnt! We eventually left the club after a major power cut off and headed together with Ian and Rose to another bar pointed at us by some drunks who were expecting us to buy them a drink there ; typical trick that some pathetic people tried to play on us more than once... Alcoholism seems to be a plague around the island, but what we also saddly heard was that there were lots of drugs going around as well. The story tells that the fishing boats pick up the packets of cocaine thrown overboard by the drug traffickers when they fear for the coast guards, and instead of destroying the stuff, they just bring it back to Big Corn...Later in the night and hardly any centigrades less, we went back to the hotel realising that we did not have the key! Fortunately enough Lisa could not sleep and after calling her name from under the balcony and our feet in the sea, we were let in. Gooooood, after all the sports dancing it was time for us to crash! But then something weird and scary happened : we thought we heard a gun shot! Rose and Lisa rushed to the ground floor and opened the main door but could only see a cab and two people, among whom a woman crying... Eventually, the German guest staying in the hotel told us the next morning what really happened ; he was sharing a cab ride with a couple he had met in a club. Obviously the guy got angry at his girlfriend and started hitting her. The taxi stopped in front of our hotel and the bloke stepped out and started kicking the girl pretty bad. And just like in a bad movie, the cab driver who wanted to cool the bloke down just took a gun and shot in the air! Well, that was really not a smart move for the drunk asshole also appeared to have a gun and he shot as well!...Later on Erica, our lovely big lady, showed up and succeeded in calming down the boilt up tempers- Don't mess around on a Caribbean Island...
After a few days on the island we started to wonder if we and when we should make a move to the obviously more touristy but more secluded Little Corn. It was very easy to get stuck in the garden of Eden, even though the regular water and power cut offs were getting a bit annoying –when the fan stopped in the middle of our first night, I felt all the water of my body rushing to the surface of my skin and got so panicky about the heat that I hardly could fall back asleep. But we did not have to decide ourselves about our next move for the change in weather made it up for us. Heavy winds settled in and after two days of tempest we spontanously decided to follow Rose and Lisa and bought a plane ticket to Managua the very same afternoon. Instead of making up unsure plans for days and wasting so much time traveling by boats and buses we could get to the capital in less than 2 hours. Straight and fast
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