This was a spot recommended to us by Scott’s cousin, Rob. Thanks Rob. Little Corn is an island off the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua and it was exactly what we wanted. We flew in a VERY small plane from Managua to Big Corn Island and then caught a Panga (small boat thingy) to Little Corn Island or Islita as the locals call it. It was wee bit of a wait to get that Panga as they only go twice a day but we got there. (unfortunately this is more than can be said for a boatload of tourists in January; their boat capsized and 13 people died. Since then, the Coast guard is much more strict, on when the Pangas can actually travel, weather-wise.) Anyway, we got there.

We stayed in the South end of the island that night at a place called The Lobster Inn which is touted as being the best value for money on the island – 20USD for a private double, sea-facing room with its own bathroom. Pretty good. The thing is, when it’s low season, like it is now, you can get great deals everywhere. The Lobster Inn was just what we needed though, and that night we had a few rums on the beach and a delicious Yellow-tail fish dinner.

The next morning we walked the 25 minutes to the North end of the Island to Ensuenos. Ensuenos is a group of little shacks on the beach, built from whatever has been washed up on shore. The result is a quirky, artistic, simple, ramshackle place that we loved. My favourite part was the bathroom; created out of rock, crushed coloured glass, thick old rope and washed-up wine bottles, it was so beautiful. Also, there is no feeling like showering in fresh water completely naked in the middle of nowhere on an island in the middle of the sea, with exotic birds and God knows what else waking up around you. Once again we had a small room for $20USD and spent the day sunbathing, reading, swimming, and drinking rum and cokes on what felt like our own private beach – literally two other people walked past us the whole time. On the North side of the island there are no stores, no roads, no nothing, so dinner is quite expensive. We balked a wee bit at the $18USD dinner at Ensuenos (it was, after all, pretty much the price of our room) but when we walked into the main shack and found a private candle-lit dinner for two, we couldn’t argue. There is no menu, they just ask if you can’t eat anything and then cook you what seafood they caught that day. We had an amazing three-course meal of seafood pasta, the biggest fish steak I’ve ever seen with crispy potatoes and fresh salad, and a caramel pie thing for dessert. All eaten by candlelight with the growing tropical winds outside howling around us. Dinner was at 6.30pm and because Ensuneos has no electricity in the shacks, we were in bed by 8pm. I had probably the worst night’s sleep I have had the whole time – partly due to the heat of the room, partly due to the maybe-too-many-rums, but once the sun came up I got up, walked the 5m to the crystal clear Caribbean water and had an amazing solo dawn swim. Instantly, all the fidgeting, frustration, and sweating of the night before evaporated. Scott woke, we had an unexpectedly epic private 3-course breakfast of fresh fruit salad, freshly baked bread with homemade jam, an omelette, delicious coffee and freshly squeezed juice and spent the morning chilling on the beach before walking 500 metres down the beach to Derek’s Place, an accommodation I had found on my wanderings the day earlier, and fell in love with. Ensuenos was awesome but I got a little paranoid about creepy crawlies…

Derek’s Place

We got to our beautiful beachfront shack thingy at Derek’s, negotiated a low season price, and spent the day chilling on our little deck and swimming in the sun. These rooms are so amazing. Made of strong beautiful wood, coloured wine bottles, exotic textiles, and everything exactly where you need it. Derek’s also has their own little – and I mean little – Dive shop, so we organised to go for a night dive with them (this took the price of our room down another $15USD). It was just me, Scott, the dive master, and Derek as the stand-in ‘captain’. We went out around 5.30pm and sat out in the water watching the sunset before jumping in. The dive was awesome. I am still not overly keen on night dives, but the sensation of being suspended in mid-air with nothing but your fellow diver’s flashlights guiding the way, is something pretty special. Also, the warm water definitely helped! By torchlight we saw a turtle swimming around – so epic. I slowly swam towards it and stroked its shell. With everything around us in darkness it felt like just me and him (or her) there and it was an amazing moment. We also saw quite a few fish including a massive pufferfish, but then, the highlight; we knelt on the sandy floor, pushed our torches to our stomachs to eliminate the light, and within seconds all around us was illuminated by bio luminescent plankton. It was insane. Imagine; surrounded by black, all you can hear is your own breath going in, and out, and all you can see is little strings of glowing pearls. But they are alive. They separate when you wave a hand through them, and then re-group. It was so amazing. Literally in a full circle around us, these tiny firefly’s of the sea, underwater stars, were glowing, creating what felt to me like the original and best ever art installation. After 45 minutes we surfaced in pitch black, rough seas, and the best Milky Way I have seen in a long time. I couldn’t help but compare these constellations to the very ones we’d just seen 12 metres deep. We hopped back on the boat and came back to shore. Night dives still make me nervous, but in that moment I felt so freaking alive. And I’m pretty sure that’s what living should feel like. We showered in yet another beautiful outdoor shower (read: bucket of water) and had a delicious dinner of seafood curry with coconut rice, wood fired bread, and iced tea. We retreated to our amazing room we still couldn’t quite believe was ours and had an amazing sleep, with the voracious tropical rain intermittently beating down on our thatched roof. So good.

We woke at 7am the next day (a serious sleep in for us) had actually the best breakfast I have had this whole trip of homemade granola, honey ‘from out the back’, natural yoghurt and fruit, and walked down the beach to find our own little private bit. After hours of our own beach, swimming pretty much naked and reading, we were hungry. Doing absolutely nothing does that to you. We walked down the beach and got fish tacos, beers, and coconut potato croquettes, and once again went swimming. The rest of the day was spent reading, drawing, writing, drinking rums, and marvelling at how lucky we were.

However, the next day when we tried to go back to Big Corn for our flight, we found out there were no boats going due to the weather. This was quite the spanner as we had a flight that afternoon and a bus to Guatemala first thing the next morning. We spent the day wondering what to do and exploring every possible option. One of the fisherman came up to us offering a ride in his boat which was literally a dinghy with a motor, which, though we reeeaaalllyyyy wanted to get back, we also rreeeaaallllyyy wanted to survive the journey. We politely declined the offer and went back to a different accommodation called Elsa’s Place and spent the night listening to an insane storm that pounded our little beachfront shack to the point where we got little splatters of rain on us…while in bed. The next day we headed back to the port and waited with about 40 other tourists who had been stuck from the previous day. The weather was still too rough to get a panga so we all got on a fishing boat and had an extremely rocky journey back to Big Corn. We then literally raced in taxis to the airport to try and get on the next flight out. Luckily, instead of their usual 12-seater, they sent their big 40-seater and we all got on 🙂 All in all, we were only a day behind schedule and luckily the transfers for both the plane and bus were mellow. If you are going to Little Corn though, maybe be on the safe side and go back to Big Corn a day earlier.