Little Corn Island

Funny story: the tiny, idyllic Caribbean (though still Nicaraguan) island of Little Corn was on my wish list when I first read through a Nicaragua guidebook, but I probably would have skipped it due to the cost of the plane ticket to get here from Managua if it weren't for JG (as opposed to JW, whom I've been traveling with), one of the other students in my yoga teacher training program, who had a job lined up on Little Corn starting immediately after our training. How could JW and I turn down the invite to come visit JG in paradise as part of our post-yoga travels?

 

So from Leon, JW and I bussed it to Managua and caught a domestic flight to Big Corn Island, and then this little boat on to Little Corn.

 

Another funny story: the guy in the foreground in the green shirt? We were all sitting in this boat at the harbor at Big Corn for a long time waiting for it to leave, so I started eavesdropping on the people talking the row behind me and heard green shirt guy mention Madagascar. I interrupted the conversation he'd been having and learned that he was the director of the American School in Tana when I lived in Mada, and actually hired the Mada friends I visited in Oklahoma City in November. Such a small world!

And, when we finally arrived on Little Corn, a small island. JG was waiting for us on the dock with a beer (for JW) and a water (for me) and we walked (no cars here! yay!) down the sidewalk to the hostel JG had staked out for us to drop off our stuff before we got down to the very serious business of trying to absorb the incredible, peaceful beauty of this place.

The island is only 2 miles long by 1 mile wide at its most extreme points, so it's easy to walk around significant portions of it every day. Though home base has been the sweet, beachy restaurant/bar, Tranquilo, where JF and her boyfriend now work.

Tranquilo is on "The Village" side of the island, as opposed to the beach hut side, which has a totally different feel.

There are a few yoga studios on the island, and JG connected me with one of her teachers, who readily agreed to a swap: I could take her classes for free in exchange for stepping up to teach a couple of her scheduled classes to give her a break and a rare afternoon off. And so I taught my first classes as an official yoga teacher in this amazing setting.

Aside from that there was a whole lot of relaxing...

...walking around the island and enjoying the beaches...

...the funky island art...

...the views...

...and stand-up paddle boarding! The reason none of us are actually standing up on the paddle boards in this pic is because we were doing yoga on the boards.

It was crazy fun; some poses that you'd think would be no problem dumped me in the water repeatedly, whereas others--like headstand--that I never would have thought possible were relatively easy.

We also walked to the northern tip of the island, to the fanciest (or at least the most expensive) hotel on Little Corn, Yemaya. Even the food was way out of my price range but the view from the dining room was incredible...

...and I had a delicious smoothie/juice and a lot of fun looking at everyone's insanely priced meals.

One more funny story: on my last day on the island, I decided to cave in and finally try scuba diving for the first time. I've been avoiding doing it my entire adult life because I knew I would love it and I didn't want to get addicted to such an expensive activity. But the try-dives here were so reasonably priced, I couldn't resist. Good last-day activity, I thought. But when I was filling out my waiver and other forms and it came time to write in the date, I suddenly got really confused. It was the 16th, and also it was Sunday, everyone around me insisted--but I'd had it in my head that my flight back to Managua was on the 16th, and I thought the 16th was Monday. I suddenly had this flash of panic, confirmed during our lunch break, that my flight was actually that morning rather than the next morning, and that I'd missed it. Even when I was looking at my confirmation e-mail and a calendar and it was clear I'd missed it, I still couldn't believe what I'd done. A BIG attack of island brain! But (though it was useless trying to take care of anything over the phone with them) it turns out that even if you outright MISS your flight, the domestic airline here considers rebooking just a change to your flight. So, after much hair-pulling with the unreliable internet connection and poor interaction between my browser and the airline's website, I successfully rebooked myself on the next available flight for only a change fee. The catch is that the next available flight wasn't until three days later. So I will be spending a bit longer than planned here, which is absolutely no hardship, as you can see from the pics above. I'll have to skip going to one of the other places I was intending to visit back on the mainland, but I already know I need to return to Nicaragua someday anyway (soon, I hope) so I can just add that to the "next time" hit list. Thank goodness I had leeway with my flight home so there's no problem making that onward journey. Jeez!

Anyway, more on the scuba experience and the rest of my island visit in the next post...if my ENTIRE brain hasn't been consumed by Caribbean fever by then.