For our Thanksgiving break in 2013 and to celebrate my mom’s birthday, we decided to take a trip to Nicaragua. My cousin Adam and I left from Kansas City MCI on November 22nd, to meet my mom Tari and younger brother Ross in Houston. From Houston IAH, we went on to our destination of Managua MGA to meet up with my older brother Jacob and his girlfriend at the time Jenna. Our flight was scheduled to arrive in Managua, Nicaragua’s capital, at 9:51 PM that night. We met Jacob and Jenna at Managua Backpackers Inn. In was really late, but we were hungry, so we got recommendations for a place to get some food around the corner from our hostel. After dinner, we went to sleep because we had a 6:15 AM flight to Corn Island the next morning.

Our alarms went off much too early around 3:45AM or so. Groggy, we took the hostel’s shuttle to catch our flight to Big Corn Island. We had two hours to do a little driving tour around the island, and then our driver took us to the boat dock pier to wait for departure. We had lunch while we waited and watched the local kids play nearby in the water. At 10:00 AM, we took the pangas ($6, 40 minute boat ride) to take us on to Little Corn Island. Our boat was small, and we crowded in. At first we weren’t sure we’d all fit (especially with our luggage), but somehow they made it all work. The waters were rough. My seasickness set in again, and I was miserable the entire boat ride. When we pulled into Little Corn, a lot people were waiting at the dock waiting to help us. One guy had a big sign with my name on it, which totally surprised me. Lacy Fox, Cool Spot (name of our bungalow) http://gracescoolspot.com/little-corn-island-cool-spot/. He helped us get our luggage out of the boat, and had us follow him through some winding jungle trails to the other side of the island. Little Corn is very small, and you can walk the island end-to-end in an hour. I read somewhere that the only wheels on the island belong to wheelbarrows (probably not true, but I liked to think it was). Everyone was friendly, and things seemed super laid back. We had two huts at Grace’s Cool Spot for $40/night . Adam, Mom, and I stayed in one. Jacob, Jenna, and Ross stayed in the other. They were simple huts with very small beds and tiny bathrooms, and they weren’t very clean. They had a lot of bugs. At one point Ross had a ton of ants in his bed. Island life, I guess. The environment outside the huts was great though: beach, hammocks, shells, etc. We dropped off our luggage and headed back to the other side of the island to Dolphin Dive www.dolphindivelittlecorn.com to be a part of their last afternoon dive of the day. We dove Stanley Reef, and then spent the rest of the evening exploring the island and watching the sunset.

The next day was a day full of diving. We dove Jarhead, then My Place over lunch, and then Casa 1 & Casa 2 that evening. On one of the dives (My Place I think), our guide lost his way, and we never found the reef. He kept looking for it. The current was strong, and so we had to swim a long ways without coral and fish to distract us. Mom had trouble with her breathing, and I was feeling wheezy myself. We thought it was our regulators not releasing enough oxygen, but after the fact we decided that it was because we swam so hard and we were pulling on our regulators for so much oxygen it felt like they weren’t giving enough. When we surfaced, I actually started vomiting because of being seasick and from the exhaustion of the dive. Adam said he felt like he needed to vomit the whole dive as well. I felt much better afterwards, but I had a killer headache. The dive shop compensated that dive for free since we didn’t find anything. The dives were only $25/dive, which is really hard to beat. Our last dive was really great. It was in a good coral bed, and we saw a lot of sea life. My mom got in trouble from the dive instructor for petting a shark. Brave one she is… There were a lot of lion fish, so our instructor speared one and fed it to the shark. It was like something out of a national geographic moment, so it was fun to be a part of it. In between dives and during the evenings, we walked around the little islands enjoying the scenery and some great views. We visited a pineapple farm and saw some cool plants. We made some friends one evening after dinner and spent the evening playing games with them. It’s a pleasant little place, but we were ready to explore more of Nicaragua after the two days. We changed our plans and decided to leave the island a bit earlier than originally planned.

C We were able to get a boat ride early the next morning on a larger cargo boat for $2 from Little Corn’s main pier to Big Corn. Once in Big Corn, we took a flight to Managua. On the way, we got some great views of Nicaragua’s spectacular coastline. We took a brief stop in Bluefields, and then we flew over some of the volcanoes around Lake Nicaragua (Masaya, Mombacho, Concepion, Maderas) which was cool to see the smoke coming out of a couple of them. In Managua, we rented a car and immediately drove a ways to Hotel Esperanza, in San Juan del Sur, a beautiful beach town with a large hill on the coastline. We found a place called Taco Stop and had a quick dinner because it was another late arrival. Adam and Jacob went out a bit longer to Big Wave Dave’s where Jacob believes he met Big Dave.

The next day we had breakfast and gave mom her birthday gift, a diving shirt. After exploring the town a bit and walking along the beach, we drove on to Playa Hermosa. It was a rough road to get there, but the beach was large and beautiful. We spent the entire day here lounging in hammocks and enjoying the area. The waves were huge, so Adam rented a surf board. It was a much needed day of relaxation. Afterwards we had drinks in San Juan Del Sur at Pelican Eyes resort overlooking the bay. The sunset had extreme colors, and we had a perfect view of it. Once it started to get dark, we drove to Granada. Granada is a charming little town with a Central Park and giant cathedral and a walking street called Calle La Calzada. The hostel we intended to stay at was full, but we found a place down the street called Hostal (Hospedaje) la Libertad for a couple of dollars a person. Most hostels were full, so settled on this one. The entryway was really nice with hammocks and bright colors, and the beds were ok. The bathrooms were disgusting, and it takes a lot for me to say that. In the middle of the night Adam kept waking up freaking out thinking little bugs were on him. The next day after googling and looking at the red dots on his skin, we think he got some sort of bug in the sea while he was surfing since he was in there the longest and out the deepest. We don’t think it was from the hostel, but we can’t be sure. Either way, the bathrooms bothered me enough (all the standing water on the floor) that I won’t go back to that hostel again. I was happy to check out of it.

We woke up in Granada and took a tour of Las Isletas de Granada. They are a group of 365 islets that were formed as a result of a volcano eruption from the Mombacho Volcano that threw huge rocks into Lake Nicaragua. We left from the marina at Puerto Asese. These little islands are owned by Nicaraguans and expatriate millionaires. Our boat meandered through these small islands stopping at points of interest. One island had a troop of five spider monkeys, which definitely became a tourist attraction. We stopped the boat to take a swim off the boat as well. Back in Granada, we decided to get a nice dinner before heading back to Managua for the night. The food on whole hadn’t been that great (a lot of beans and rice (gallo pinto)). We enjoyed some drinks, a hookah bar, the locals trying to get Jenna to dance, and then dinner at Pizzeria Don Luca before heading back to Managua Backpackers Inn. We took the car back to Managua. There was a festival going on with a lot of lights and people out and about. We did a quick driving tour of some of Managua’s main buildings, and then hung out for the rest of the night in spots around the MGA Boardwalk & Pier. They had some really active nightlife where I found the people watching entertaining.

We took an 8:00 AM flight back home via Houston IAH to Fayetteville XNA (nearby southern Missouri where I grew up) and arrive Thanksgiving evening with still a three day weekend to catch up and relax for the holiday. I enjoyed my time in Nicaragua, and there was a lot more to see than what we had time for.