Little Corn Island

"Feliz navidad. Feliz navidad. Prospero año y felicidad." (For the melody of this beautiful Christmas song I totally trust on your creativity).

Christmas on a tropical bounty island, that was the plan. After a smooth flight (with a reusable boarding pass) and horrible boat ride (everything was soaking wet) we arrived at Little Corn (Isla maís pequeña), where the pouring rain greeted us. This strange island is situated on the east coast of Nicaragua, next to a bit bigger sand plate they call Big Corn. Some characteristics of this crazy place I found out last week:
- Just like the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, locals speak Creole. It's the easiest to describe as an ununderstandable mixture of Spanish and English, with some kind of accent from Suriname: "Heeee man, me is happy!".
- Indeed, all the locals are black, or at least much darker than most of the Nicaraguans.
- The island itself consist of beaches, a small light house (with an amazing view from the top), and loads of restaurants and dive/snorkel shops. That's it.
- This all has a big advantage: the two bigger pubs on the island are always full and cosy. Even on the small sand road leading to them, you continuously meet people you know. Cocktails, live music... Good life!
- Besides those buildings, one other is worth mentioning: the bakery. They bake their famous coconut bread (mwaa...) as well as banana bread (mmm!) as well as ginger bread (oh yes!). Located just 5 minutes from my hostel, it turned out to be my guilty pleasure.
- Despite all this wonderfulness the weather during our stay was horrible. Tropical storms turned out to be part of the island life as well. Dry season, where are you?! We experienced pouring rain in 30degrees Celsius. Yes, and that means you are cold! The storm damage from our good friend Otto (you remember, the hurricane which hit Latin America three weeks ago) was clearly visible according to the locals. The beaches were small and less white. There was lots of trash in the water and the water visibility was poor at the main beaches.

I spend most of my time on the island with diving: getting my diving licence PADI open water. With a 100% on theory and an excellent in skills I can proudly (and a little bit arrogant) announce I got it! :) The dives were amazing. Suppressing my sea sickness by drugging myself and... Go! Breathing under water was a whole new experience. First scary, later amazing. The freedom, the ease of moving, the weightlessness. Swimming trough amazing coral reefs, seeing nurse sharks, sting rays, ales, swimming between big schools of hundreds of fishes... Breath taking (figuratively!). The best experience: swimming with the sharks. They kept following us, lied on our fins and touched our arms with their noses. Totally harmless. They behave like this because divers are used to kill the invasive, coral threatening lion fish, the favourite meal of the sharks. My new under water friends!

So now you are -of course- really curious how I spend Christmas without my dear family. Well, I had an amazing Christmas Eve. Live reggae music, nice cocktails, dancing on the beach. The first time in my life of going out and getting drunk on Christmas Eve instead of having well behaved conversations with friends and family. However, Christmas Day was horrible. When we tried to go to the northern beaches, which are supposed to be the best, we ended up soaked till the bone and covered with mud. Our reward for this rough and rainy walk was a lovely Christmas dinner, afterwards I was too stuffed to complain anymore.

With new year coming up, I go back to Granada! I'm gonna meet my Dutch/British Panama-crew to make a good party! They told me Nicas love firework, so I hope I come back with both of my arms and legs... A really happy new year for all of you guys!