Isn't travel glamorous?

I find that I don't generally write about travel unless it is to rant about terrible service or whine about buses. I am not alone; my friend ATK recently wrote a searing piece on the Frankfurt airport. But even though my trip home from Nicaragua was obviously booked by a sadist, and there will be no small amount of whining, I'd like to also celebrate the quirky, the cute, and the kind people I crossed paths with on my journey.

In booking my flight home I had to check with my parents to see how their schedule could coordinate with picking me up from the airport. (After a full year in Nicaragua I was not traveling particularly lightly and could not have managed public transit.) My parents informed me that they were leaving on vacation the week I was planning to come home and so I would have to leave the day after my birthday. Since my birthday ushered in a new level of ancientness it seemed only appropriate to go to bed at 9PM. I am mostly kidding; my flight was at 6AM and I wanted to be slightly coherent in the morning just in case something weird happened and I needed to be able to think. For example, on my trip to El Salvador my name was spelled wrong on the ticket and that caused a teensy bit of trouble at an ungodly hour.

As on all trips leaving a country for forever, I had carefully calculated my currency so that I would have minimal cordobas going home. In fact, I had slightly less than $20 which I thought would be enough to pay for my taxi (who last time had charged me $10). However, last time wasn't at three in the morning so the taxista charged me a full $20. Evidently I hadn't slept quite enough to be coherent because instead of just negotiating him down to the cordobas that I had, I handed him a $20...which meant that I was going to have to spend a bit on earrings and chocolates in the airport.

I hauled my luggage up to the counter where a man told me that not only did I have way too many bags but also that one of my bags was over 50lbs. (Note: Nicaraguans use pounds for some reason. Just so you know. Once my physical therapist asked me what I weighed and I was all proud of myself that I could do the conversion to kilograms in my head and he completely deflated me by asking, "Oh, but what's that in pounds?") Again, at 4:00 in the morning my logic escaped me and I blurted out something like, "ugh. credit card me." First note about lovely people: the man in line in front of me helped me heft my behemoth bags on the scale despite having two children and several bags to wrangle himself. It was very sweet. Second note: the man at the ticket counter booked me an exit row seat. I think he felt sorry for me having to lay down about $300 on luggage. Especially after I plaintively remarked, "That's like a whole 'nother flight home."

After being freed from my luggage I set off to liberate myself from my $17 in cordobas. First I bought a box of chocolates. I sadly didn't have quite enough money for two. So I bought a pair of super pretty earrings. The saleswoman looked me straight in the eye, smirked and handed me my change in all coins. If there's anything worse than having $3 left to spend, it's having it in the form of 40 heavy pieces of metal. I subjected the poor snack woman to my ire by buying a water with those coins. She actually did not react poorly, probably because I was using the Bolivian tactic of telling her that she would forgive me before I did something wrong. ("Me va a disculpar pero...") I'd never used it in Nicaragua before. They tend to rely on the opposite tactic of forgiving wrongdoing with a "No biggie." (No hay falla.) I wonder what their disparate methods for diffusing small conflicts implies?

Then I went through passport control where I had the same problem I have every time: describing my profession. In Bolivia, every professional is either a licenciado or ingeniero. I decided early on to say that I was an ingeniera forestal or forester. The Nicaraguan officers ALWAYS have a problem with this. I'm not sure if it's because the concept does not translate in Nicanol (I never hear anyone use the Lic. or Ing. title there) or if they know that the forestry trade is largely controlled by the Nica government so there's no way I could be involved, or because I'm a woman. Then the discussion reveals that I work in international development (another tricky concept) for a Catholic agency but no one can ever think of a job title for that, least of all me. Generally, they resort to writing down "missionary" which drives me nuts.

On the plane in my spacious exit row I was seated next to a Nicaraguan woman and her American boyfriend. As we took off, the Nica and I started crying. Me because it has been a weird year that didn't go very well and her because this had been her first time back in Nicaragua in 18 years and she was leaving her family behind again. This created a bond between us and she and her boyfriend shared with me some of the Nica treats they were carrying back. We ate corn cakes and rosquillas and drank terrible coffee. When we got our customs form the Nica wrote out a list of food items to declare that rivaled War and Peace for length. It made me seriously rethink my shopping choices; hibiscus flowers and chia and coconut oil would go way farther than rum and coffee. I also subtly cautionws her that she may not want to admit to everything.

We parted ways upon landing because I only had one hour between flights. An hour between flights is pretty standard except when you need to go through passport control and customs like we all did. Like I mentioned before, a sadist booked my flights. So I grabbed my three four-hundred pound bags and went to the customs line. At one point I must have looked confused (or been staring at someone blankly) because another traveler ahead of me in line asked me if I was ok. As I finally neared the customs official I noticed that I was behind the couple carrying every single Nicaraguan export. They, surprisingly, breezed through. Maybe they took my advice. I, however, found it very hard to describe my job without using words like farm, agriculture, and plants. As I saw the gleam in the officer's eyes that indicated that he had finally nabbed a dirty farm-going hippie and would subject me to a first-degree inspection and quarantine I blurted out in a last-ditch effort, "It's an office job! I've never even touched a cow!" Phew. He left me with a parting admonition not to hold my passport in my mouth because "Who knows what these officers have touched." Not a cow though. They haven't touched any cows.

The next officer started a friendly conversation and for some reason asked how many languages I spoke. He then gave me further directions in French. Luckily they were appropriate to my pidgin level. It is always so nice to have a friendly interaction with airport personnel. (I'm not being facetious or sarcastic. It really is the little things that can help you bear lugging 150 pounds of luggage around for hours.)

Next I dropped off my bags and got in line for security. At one point a TSA agent was shepherding a man through the line saying that his flight left in 30 minutes. I blurted out, "But mine leaves in 20!" She left him right behind me. I made it onto my plane and was immediately confronted by a shrieking three year old. Hysterical. And this another one of those friendly interactions: one of the flight attendants whisked the screaming banshee and his grandma away to the galley and fixed him a juice and somehow calmed the kidlet down. They returned to their seat where the little one sang the alphabet song for the entire flight. My favorite part was "vee, dubble-ubble, ex, why, zeeeeee."

Somehow the flight arrived 20 minutes early which was the only reason I had time to pee and get something to eat before my next flight. Because, yes, the sadist travel agent could not get me a direct flight from Miami to NY. Also let's take a moment to kvetch about how airlines don't provide food anymore. I mean I had prepared in advance but there are only so many linseed granola bars a girl can eat...especially without peanut butter.

And that's all. I made it home to NY safely with all my luggage and I send thank you to the guy who helped me lift my bags, the desk attendant who gave me an exit seat, the Nica couple who shared their food, the woman who worried about my mental state, the French-speaking customs agent, the child-whisperer flight attendant, and all the people who didn't stare at me as I stretched in the airport.

Little Corn Island -- bring on the fishes

After the trauma of the boatride, L and I split a gigantic, delicious but very, ahem, leisurely seafood dinner at Elsa's. I am used to the somewhat lax standard of customer service that exists in the Global South and it was brought to my attention that some Nicaragua restaurants serve gringo customers more slowly than Nicas because gringos are usually on vacation and less likely to complain but I don't think either of these factors was in play during our meal. Instead, it was an exaggerated introduction to "island time" which I think of as enforced leisure, a condition I do not enjoy when hungry. However, even though I whine, it is important to note that the food at Elsa's was fabulous: ample, simple, tasty, and full of coconut and garlic.

Some of the artwork at Elsa's

Then we retired to our leaky cabin. Although water could get in, air did not. After a hot, wet night (and not in a good way) I woke up at the crack of dawn and in my escape I discovered that I couldn't keep the door closed unless I locked it. Rather than walk along the beach to leave L to discover that she had been locked in, I was a good friend and read on the front porch. After paying for the room and checking out some less leaky hotel options we ate a delicious Nica style breakfast with a Caribbean twist. A typical Nica breakfast is rice and beans, cheese, tortilla, coffee, and maybe some egg. On the caribbean side, the tortilla is replaced with coconut bread and the rice is cooked in coconut oil (instead of vegetable oil). We worried only momentarily what the sudden influx of coconut might do to our digestive systems...totally worth it.

After switching to the lovely, tranquil, and dry Casa Iguana we dove right into vacation both literally and figuratively: swimming at the Casa's private beaches, drinking unlimited hot beverages and some cold ones, and reading and napping.

The view from our cabin's porch

A few highlights:
Island tour: Although a good portion of the island caters specifically to the comparatively rich, expat tourists, it is important to note that the maids and waiters and snorkel guides and shop owners and coconut bread makers also live on the island. One day we walked the entire island to check out the docks, the school,the baseball stadium, and some of the more hoity toity beaches.

Courtesy of LCBB. See: pina coladas.

Our taxi driver had informed us that the Bluefields team (from an Atlantic coast city) were in the baseball finals against Managua so I took a moment to check out the local talent. L was afraid that we were going to get beaned and die. (We didn't.) At the beach we practiced taking photos that minimized our bellies. I didn't know that this was a thing and was distressed to learn that for over thirty years I had not been using my other assets correctly on film. (Technically though I haven't had the assets or the belly for thirty years. Maybe 18 and 5 years respectively.)

Not getting the idea of a glamour shot

Piña coladas: to perfect our bellies we stopped for piña coladas at Little Corn Beach and Bungalow. They were the best piña coladas in the entire universe, and I don't even like piña coladas. We would have drunk more but we didn't have enough money. As it stood, L had to run to the hotel to get more cash...because I'm slow and was the teensiest bit drunk. BEST. EVER.

Massages: On one rainy day, L and I decided to treat ourselves to massages at the Karma Shack to get rid of the sore spots we still had from the boat ride. One gets surprisingly tense when hanging on for dear life in a panga. Not only did I get un-tensed but the lovely Leo filled me in on all the island gossip!

Patrick: One of the things that I talked over with Leo was travel reviews. I shared that I love to read the negative reviews on travel websites. The negative reviews, to me, truly reveal the character of the visitors. My favorites are the ones that criticize for ridiculous reasons: "None of the staff in this foreign country speak English" "There was a lizard in my room" "The sand was too sandy." In Nicaragua, I was lucky to live in a sweet two bedroom condo in a gated community...and I still had lizards in my house and scorpions in the laundry room and ants everywhere, and even sometimes cockroach visitors. So I was almost comforted to have a single "visitor" in our cabana who I named Patrick.

Ferguson: Since the island is so small we ran into our friend Rizdale everywhere. At first he introduced himself to us each time but eventually he figured out which of the blonde chicks we were. Although we recognized him at each appearance, we had some trouble remembering his name. I had recently read The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain in which he highlights the particular idiocy of Americans in foreign countries. A truly delightful satire, the characters decide to call every guide they hire by the same name: Ferguson. L, however, settled on the name Darwin.

Fishy fishy: Rizdale/Darwin invited us several times to go snorkeling and we jumped at the chance on the only sunny day of our trip. Evidently there is some competition between snorkel guides and they often stoop to poaching customers, particularly Rizdale's, so he was nervous that we would abandon him. Despite an attempt by a portly Ferguson we met up with Rizdale and some of the large ankled tourists and set out. We saw lobsters, coral, big fishes, little fishes, and stingrays. It was surprisingly wavy and the canckle ladies kept kicking me and I must have looked distressed because Rizdale swam with me for much of the outing, holding my hand and pointing to the exotic fauna. We saw three sharks! In the true spirit of competition, Rizdale inflated the number and size of the sharks that we had seen to every group that we encountered.

Our meeting place with Darwin

Post-snorkel, and post-dinner we gathered our courage and boarded the panga back to Big Corn. It was pretty painless except for one woman who fell out of the boat when disembarking. In the airport I wound up sitting next to a slightly drunk 50 year old expat who hinted very strongly that he would be willing to have some sort of friends with benefits relationship with me. He redeemed himself slightly when he said that he didn't think I could be older than 20 but ruined it all again when he voiced suspicion that I was a lesbian, citing that I was checking out some ladies. Honestly, I was looking at everyone trying to convey with my eyes that I needed to be rescued.

Vacation ended with a suspiciously cheap taxi ride home from the airport... it was inexpensive because we dropped off three other passengers before making it into Managua proper. I'm pretty sure the taxi ride took the same amount as the boat and flight home. And so ended my last vacation as an expat in Nicaragua.

Little Corn Island - "Terrifying boat rides, heavenly snorkeling, awesome storm, fishy fishy*"

When I was considering writing a post about my vacation to Little Corn Island I hesitated because I didn't think that it was a particularly interesting or outlandish trip. This just shows you that I've spent too much time in Latin America.

As my last week in Nicaragua snuck up on me I realized that I had three big trips that I wanted to go on: Somoto Canyon, Corn Island, and Rio San Juan. At first, I settled on Rio San Juan but the logistics were a little daunting, especially given my travel buddy's (L's) limited time frame. So L, who you may remember from our Matagalpa adventures, just went ahead and bought plane tickets to Corn Island. These are the types of friends you need: the kind that call and say, "Hey I just bought us tickets to a tropical island. Will you handle hotel reservations?"

Corn Island is actually two islands (Big and Little Corn) off the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. The Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, and in fact of much of Central America, was under British rule until the very late 1800s. Home to many indigenous groups and a haven for shipwrecked sailors and escaped Caribbean slaves, the area has evolved into an interesting amalgam of cultures and languages, a mixture that caused L and I a teensy bit of politically correct angst. Do we say "Buenas"? Or "Hello"? Or do we try to learn some Garifuna or Miskito? Should we racially profile or let someone else say "Hey there" first?**


But I get ahead of myself. Not only are the islands politically isolated but they are geographically remote. Arriving over land requires a 12 hour bus ride and an 8 hour boat ride, that was described to me as "only worth it so that you can say you've done it." So L and I found ourselves in the La Costena airport terminal. We had been told by the check-in guy that we couldn't go through security for another twenty minutes so we were leaning up against a wall near the check-in desk where it was sort-of air conditioned (instead of outside in the scorching heat with the other tourists) when a woman came up and asked why we didn't go through security. She said, with an unspoken "you idiots"  that there were seats and beer on the other side. So we went through to find seats and beer and some surprisingly thick-legged young tourists. (I am not trying to be mean. I have never seen such a concentration of cankles. It was fascinating!) An hour flight later we found ourselves sitting in a seaside restaurant on big Corn Island eating conch and waiting for our panga (motor boat) to Little Corn.

See the boat with all the people? That's the kind we took

I had read somewhere that the seats in the back of the boat were ideal for those who are prone to seasickness so L and I snagged seats in the way back row behind the driver. I'm not sure if you've ever been on a Latin American bus where they pack thousands of people on and just when you think someone will fall out of a window they add a few more people but evidently panga travel relies on the same basic principle. In the back row with us were two women with children, two men sitting on the edge of the boat, two huge barrels of gas, several packages,the driver and his two assistants. Just when I thought we were ready to go a 50 year old woman got on and stood behind the driver, hugging him for balance. And while the back wasn't too seasicky, my source failed to mention an important caveat: the wetness factor.

Every single wave that hit the boat doused us in salty wet goodness. And there were some big ass waves slapping us down. At one point there was a fish in the boat. The guys sitting on the side of the boat (and pretty much sitting on us) didn't seem too concerned and broke open a six pack. Later, L confessed that it was their nonchalance that convinced her that maybe this was normal and we would in fact survive. We arrived and dragged our sopping wet selves onto the dock where I noticed that no one who sat in front of the driver was wet at all. Lesson learned.

The view from the dock

On the dock several of the hotel proprietors were meeting their customers. While I am a spectacular person and a spiffy dresser I had sort of failed at holding up my end of the making hotel reservations bargain. So I latched onto this man who said that he could guide us to the other side of the island. He pointed out all of his relatives' hotels and restaurants and left us at a grouping of rasta-painted huts where he implored us to remember him if we wanted to go snorkeling. "My name is Rizdale. My mom is right next door. You want to snorkel you ask for Rizdale***."

And so began a rainy few days of stuffing ourselves on seafood, swimming, napping, and wandering around the tiny island. I'll get to it in a separate post...don't want to tax your brains with all the reading

*A direct quote from L
**If you want a prettier description read the damn Washington Post
***Not this guy