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Corn Islands Adventure

Yes, we finally did it and went on our mini-vacation to the Corn Islands. If you book on line with La Costena Airlines they charge you $18.00 extra so we decided to trot down to a travel agency in Granada and book through them and save the $36.00. Haha, of course, should have known better that it wasn’t quite going to work out that way.

The agent was not the friendliest guy on the planet but I did watch him call the airlines by landline and he filled out our tickets by hand. When I told him I’ll pay by credit card he informs me of the extra charges. So, dear friends, it ended up costing the same as if I had booked on line $182.00 but felt secure since I had the tickets in hand.

Travel arrangements are made to get to Managua, we’re excited and eager to get there. With big smiles on our faces we go to the La Costena ticket counter to check in and give the agent our tickets and pass ports. She looks up after a minute of typing into her computer and says, “I’m sorry, but you have no reservation.” Huh??? What??? No way!!!! Can’t be possible, we paid for the tickets, it has a ticket number, reservation number, how can we not be reserved? A nice agent for the airlines comes and takes us to another office and they explain it can happen that the travel agent reserved but did not confirm, but he tells us not to worry, we’ll put you on stand-by and you have a 90% chance of getting on but you will have to wait till 15 minutes before departure to know.

Since the travel agent had fore warned us to be there 2 hours before departure (why, I don’t know, its not like its an international flight) we had plenty of time to go get a cold Tona and a sandwich. We discussed plan B in case we didn’t make it on stand-by. What do we do, go back to Granada and pay for all the taxi fares back and forth or get a hotel in Managua? Ugh! Just as I was beginning to despair the nice agent comes running to us and smiles, “you’re on, go and check in”. Yay!

Finally, we’re on our way and we get our free rum and coke. Life is good again. We arrive in Big Corn and as soon as we get out all the taxi drivers are there to take you to where ever you are going. One guy tells us he is the taxi driver for the Morgan (where we booked) and he’ll be back in 15 minutes to pick us up so we trot over to the little bar and sit down to have a few cold Tona’s. Slowly, we watch as all the people leave in taxis, 15 minutes go by, 20 minutes, half an hour, the airport is now deserted except for us sitting there having another Tona, waiting and waiting. I finally tell my hubby, I think we better grab the next taxi we see, finally he agrees and what happens next…we stand there by the road and not a taxi in site for a good 10 minutes. Yeah, just our luck, then finally one appears. We hop in and he takes us to the hotel.

When we arrive at the Morgan the lady that greets us, no, wait, she didn’t really greet us, she sort of nodded at us and took us to the room. Oh my! We look around the room, egads! Not quite what we were expecting but hey, we’re on vacation, we’ll make do. After unpacking some stuff we go out to get a cold beer. The same lady informs us that the bar is closed! What? What? Did we hear right?

She did accommodate us by getting two beers out of the restaurant fridge but the restaurant is not open and we have no where to sit and have our beer outside. She finally tells us we can take the one, yes, the only one plastic table up by the bar balcony and drink our beers there. Okay we decide our next plan is to get some dinner. We grab a taxi and go to Mama Lola’s. We have no idea where it is but had read they served good food and by this time its night time and the taxi driver takes us on this dirt road that looks like its in the middle of no where. Whoa, more adventure coming our way. When we arrive I’m beginning to think we’re in a Fellini movie. The hotel/restaurant is empty, its dark, almost creepy, the wind is blowing but the bartender/waiter invites to take any table we want. It actually turns out that dinner was very good and a few people do arrive and the waiter was friendly and we chatted and he gave us several hotels and restaurants to check out.

The next morning we went for breakfast at Big Fish which was just down the road from the Morgan and had a good breakfast and then we checked out of Morgan’s telling them we decided to go to Little Corn instead as we hopped into a taxi and went instead to Hotel Picnic. The beautiful beach was enchanting and we finally felt our vacation had begun.

The next few days were spent lounging around, sunning, swimming and eating. Martha’s was great for breakfast. Had an enjoyable dinner at Selva’s. Another dinner was at Danetta’s house where we met a colourful character called Hamish and spent the evening with him.

On our third day we headed to Little Corn. Panga time! Squished like sardines, 5 people per row, sweating bullets while we waited for the boat to leave and when we did, woohoo, ride em bronco, it was a wild ride of bouncing up and down, better than any fair ride!

We were booked at Grace’s Cool Spot and our beach cabana was um mm, yep, a beach cabana, he he, felt like we were backpackers, old backpackers and hubby mentioned he was getting too old for this stuff. It turned out to be a lot of fun, got used to our little room (at least we had our private bathroom).

Little Corn was enchanting if you’re young and want to do a lot diving and snorkeling. We opted for lazing around, drinking and eating instead and exploring the island.

We returned to Big Corn for our final day and we went back to Hotel Picnic and did more of the same, eating, drinking, swimming and sunning on the spectacular beach. Life is good!

So, the question is which island did we prefer? We both thought originally that we would love Little Corn but instead we enjoyed Big Corn and can’t wait to go back there next year.

Gordana

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