Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Today was the day! We finally made it! We headed down to the municipal dock in time for the 10:00 a.m. boat to Little Corn. Loading started at 9:45 and we took off at 10:15. The crossing was a nightmare. The swells were so high that it felt more like a roller coaster ride than a boat ride. Up, up, up, and then -smack!- down. Those smacks hurt and each was was accompanied by a splash of water. These were no light spritzes, but more like someone just outside the boat was throwing buckets of water at us.

The backpacker girls behind us were shrieking with laughter... at first. After a while they shut up. The locals in front of us were stoic. They didn't even bother with their lifevests, not even for the small boy in the seat in front of us. And someone must have loved him, because he was wearing a gold necklace and a gold bracelet and two gold rings.

I was terrified, clutching at Michael's arm with every swell. "I hope we like our new home of Little Corn Island," I managed to joke with my eyes squeezed shut against the burning salt water. I couldn't imagine voluntarily subjecting myself to the trip back. I was so miserable that I could barely be happy that my hair is natural and I didn't have to worry that I was getting soaked to the scalp.

Little Corn, once I managed to find something to dry my glasses with, looked very nice and chill. Nothing tall, nothing corporate, just a row of little businesses leading either way away from the dock. The "dock" was a set of portable wooden stairs that could be placed in the sand next to the boat so folks can climb in and out. There was a sign in Spanish asking people not to leave the stairs in the water. It was hot and sunny, which was good, because we were very wet.

A tout collected some of our boatmates and they were off immediately. We opted to do things on our own and followed signs for Ensuenos and Casa Sunrise. We walked along a battered concrete walkway that ran along the top of the beach and then angled off between small houses. It eventually led right up to someone's door. A couple of different mud paths away from it. A man asked us if we were going to Derek's. We didn't much care. It was one of those situations where we'd take pretty much the first decent thing we found and then maybe change hotels later.

This was followed by a hot, tiring, and boring hour and a half of walking over narrow mud paths through steamy groves of palm and banana trees and other shrubbery with our increasingly heavy packs. We gave up, turned back, tried another way, had no luck, got help, and finally found Casa Sunrise. It was booked up.

But Ensuenos was just down the beach, they told us, and Derek's was just beyond that. To our great joy, we found Ensuenos with no problems. There we met the proprietor, Ramon from Spain, who emerged from his house and showed us around wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. His place is a trip. It's all made of found objects, driftwood and cane and shells and such, with unique little cabins scattered here and there. There's a dorm too, still in progress.

The toilet is outside. I feel I should clarify, because later in the afternoon when I told that fact to another couple who came by the check the place out, they gave me a pitying look, like, aww, first time away from home? Ok, when I say "outside," I don't mean an outhouse or something. I mean there's a regular Western-style toilet. And a grove of trees. And the toilet is in the middle of the grove of trees. Not a toilet stall, a toilet. But it seemed neat.

The shower was outside as well, and you have to pump water from the well before you can use it. However much water you choose to pump is how much is available for your shower.

Ramon had two cabins available. The first one we looked at was made of cane and the door was decorated with a wild painting of a man and woman smooching. It was, as I would be forced to say if I wrote for Lonely Planet, a stone's throw from the sea.

There were multitudes of candles (no electricity) and there was a cane platform above the bed for our backpacks. The floor was concrete and swirled with brightly colored paint, but under the bed platform was sand. Ramon assured us that it was a twenty-minute walk to town along the beach. The room was $15 USD.

"We'll take it, man," Michael said. "It's great."

We had to do some carving on the window frame with the knife before we could get the window flap to work, but once we did, we could sit on our bed and see the Carribean. It was great. But to be honest, I wasn't one hundred percent in love with the room. It was a little too... raw and nature-y for a city girl like me. But the location was fabulous and it was great to throw down the pack, take off my salt-crusted t-shirt and mud-crusted pants and put on my bathing suit and get out into the water.

Ramon cooks dinner for guests on request, but that evening he couldn't do it as there was a birthday party for a neighbor that he was going to. So we had to walk into town for food. This we did after our swim. On the way, we found Derek's, and had a look at it. I like to see what my options are. We met Derek himself, a tall American from Virginia, with a braided red beard.

He showed us the rooms. The nicest two were twenty-five dollars each and they were amazing. Raised a full story off the ground, with hammocks underneath, they were also made of local materials, but they had a clean "inside" polish that Ensuenos lacked. The toilets were indoors, in a stone room with conch shells set into the walls, and windows made of Flor de Cana rum bottles with different colored water inside, letting in the light.

We left there feeling torn. Twenty-five dollars is out of our price range, but for rooms like that? A definite bargain in the states. And when would we be back to the Corn Islands? Better to make the most of it now, right? Still, we plan to stay for at least a week (it seems we have to, given the situation of the weekly boat from Big Corn back to Bluefields) and that's a lot of cash.

We went to town, on the way discovering the spot where we'd turned back, just five minutes from Derek's. Man.

In town we ran into the Canadians. Michael had met the friendly, middle-aged couple on Big Corn the previous morning, where they were just finding out they couldn't make it out to Little Corn that day. He'd recommended our hotel and they'd checked in, but when they discovered that the 4:00 p.m. boat was going out, they abandoned their room, wasting nine dollars, and made the trip. The trip over was bad, they said.

"We saw you come in," the wife told us. "You had swells, but we had waves on top of swells." They recommended a comedor (small eatery) for its lobster, explaining at length how they serve three lobster tails for 120 cordobas, unlike some places which charge 150 cordobas for just two tails. So we went there, and we both ordered the langosta al ajillo, lobster with garlic.

A short while later, the Canadians marched back by. They were very fast walkers. As a New Yorker, I'm a fast walker myself, but dang, it's a Carribean island. Where are you guys going?

"She says she makes the best lobster in town," said the husband, coming in to squeeze the shoulders of our waitress. "And she's right!" We all laughed appreciatively, and then the Canadians power-walked away.

Later we were sitting and drinking our refrescos, which were truly noteworthy - tamarindo for me and fruit punch for Michael, just as fresh and sweet and cold and amazing as possible. The Canadians marched by again. "It's worth the wait," they called. "Ok," we said.

The food was very good. Three lobster tails, as promised, with a sort of almost-curry garlic sauce, accompanied by fried plantains, rice, fries, and salad. The Canadians marched by from the other direction. "Mmm, good, huh? Didn't we tell you?"

It was just before sunset when we started the walk back to Ensuenos. This time we knew the correct path, so we didn't expect the trip to take too long. Unfortunately, it was getting dark quickly and away from the town there were no lights. I pulled out my Mini Maglite, but negotiating the tree-roots and mud puddles of a forest path becomes more difficult by flashlight, especially when there are two people who need to use the light.

Once I heard a rustling in the shrubbery and when I turned my light on it, it turned out to be a large crab hurrying away into the bushes. I was not happy, but we were going along and getting through it. Then the flashlight died. Just went out. And we were in the pitch black, among the trees, with any number of creatures closing in on us. It was dark. No streetlights, no moonlight, no starlight. I was afraid of what might be stalking us, but I was also afraid of wandering off the path in the darkness and never finding our room.

Michael had the idea of switching the batteries around and tricking the flashlight. This worked. The light was weak, but it was light. "Hurry up," he said. "Just come on." I kept getting scared and trying to make sure I wasn't going to walk into a spider or something.

Our light went out again on the path, but again the trick worked, and this time it got us all the way back to Ensuenos. Ensuenos was pitch black. Ramon and his Dutch... friend? girlfriend? must have still been at the birthday party. There seemed to be no other guests around. But we had a large supply of assorted candles to work with and we were tired enough to go to sleep soon anyway.

HOURS IN A LANCHA/PANGA: 6.75

 

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Water taxi from Big Corn to Little Corn.

View from Ensuenos, Little Corn Island.

Our cabin, Ensuenos, Little Corn Island.

Beach, Little Corn Island.

Beach path by day.

Forest path, by day.

More forest path.