Big Corn Island, Nicaragua

While the Amapala day trip was fabulous, something went wrong sometime after midnight back at the hotel in Tegucigalpa. Things were amiss at the Circle K, dude. I think that the most likely culprit was some of the food that I ate at the beach, but between that and sunburn-related discomfort, I was not a happy camper on Saturday morning. I silently thanked God that I had bought a Steripen as an afterthought right before leaving the States; at least I could get some drinkable water to rehydrate without leaving the necessary proximity to the hotel bathroom.

I skipped the awesome Honduras Maya breakfast (sniff) so that I could meet Randy, Helena, and Gordon on time in the lobby to take a cab to the Ticabus station. We would spend the next 8 hours or so on a bus to Managua, Nicaragua. This was uneventful other than the fact that I was in feverish misery: sleeping as much as I could, subsisting solely on Tylenol and electrolyte tablet water (now you know how sick I was. I am typically human vacuum cleaner when food is around), and occasionally waking up in order to plot my sabotage of the overhead television system, which was blasting the movie Captain Phillips at top volume. I will never look at Tom Hanks the same way again.

After about 11 hours of solid sleep in my simple room at the hostal, I was feeling much better and was actually able to eat some solid food without repercussion at the airport. Randy, Gordon, Helena and I were flying on La Costeña airlines to Big Corn Island, which is off the coast of Nicaragua. We checked in and waited at our “gate” (there was only one). A national baseball game was on the television in the bar, and we watched (with mixed amounts of amusement and surprise) as our pilot sat down and helped himself to a rum-based cocktail. On board the small plane, the flight attendant rolled her cart down the aisle for beverage service. Your choices? Coke, 7Up, or rum. La Costeña: We fly the friendliest skies.

The runway on Big Corn takes up a good part of the length of the island, which is only about a mile wide. Our taxi ride to the hotel took approximately 3 minutes. We were staying at Hotel Paraiso, a Dutch-run hotel with small bungalows in the Brig Bay area. It was simple, clean, and quiet. There are a resident dog named Nike and two caged parrots, Lola and Parrot To Be Named Later. I resolved to do as little activity as possible over the next few days.

Here’s a collection of photos from our stay on the island.

Cleveland sports fans everywhere!

Fresh coconut water right off the tree

Parrots enjoy coconut, too 🙂