Category: Nicaragua

We’ve seen the old city. We’ve seen the new city. We’ve hiked several volcanoes. It was time to go to the beach and spend our remaining days in Nicaragua on Little Corn Island. After a quick flight from Managua to Big Corn via Bluefields, we waited for a couple of hours for the boat that took us to Little Corn. At the docks, one of the locals asked us and a Canadian couple to follow him after he heard that we all wanted to stay at Derek’s Place–this small paradise on the island with only a short description in our guide books. (We didn’t know then that you could go to the dive shop at the docks and ask for availability. They can radio almost anyone on the island to save you from trekking through the forest yourself.) With our backpacks on and the humidity like Times Square in July, the trek to Derek’s Place was tiring. When we finally got there, we found out that there was only one hut available. They only have four huts on their property and you basically have to wait and see. We introduced ourselves to the Canadian couple and shared the hut for the first night. The next day, we lucked out when another hut was vacated–we felt more at home the next two nights.

Derek’s Place is nice; there’s no other word to describe it. Derek first came to the island when he was young and returned when he decided to leave California. He met his Catalunyan wife, Anna, a bit later and she followed him to the island. They have two young kids and they’ve since made their living by welcoming travelers from all over the world to their huts. I’ve stayed in plenty of huts the last six years, but none were as beautifully built for $25 a night. Colored bottles emit glow when the moonlight hits them at night. The shared bathroom has a giant wok for a sink and the shared shower room reminded me of Caves Branch in Belize from a trip a few years ago. Derek likes to cook so we had very good dinners for three nights. During the day, we would eat the same usual fare: fried chicken and fried fish with plantains bought from the small shacks by the docks. But for dinner, Derek served us everything from conch and shrimp salads, to pasta with shiitake mushrooms, to fish broth to curry to smoked snapper and jack. The Dr. and I also drank the coldest beers on the island because of their windmill and solar power. We even finished a bottle of wine and rum in two days just by sitting around the fire at night. During the day, when we weren’t reading our books or sleeping on the hammocks, we walked to and from the docks to look for food, rented bikes to circle the island, swam and sunbathe on different beaches. Little Corn may be little, but it had so much to offer big city dwellers like us.

You can imagine how difficult it was to leave. On our way back to catch our flight to New York, we decided to stay on Big Corn Island instead of Managua. There was an unmistakable feeling that, once upon a time, Big Corn Island was the center of it all. Walking around the island felt eery. Somehow, I kept thinking of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s words and imagining the ghosts of the island’s past. As we walked around and witnessed empty lobster traps strewed on the side of the road, buildings left in ruins, and a dry swamp with mangroves clinging to dear life, Big Corn Island instantly became a ghost town; a place that was once full of life. We stayed at Anastasia’s on the Sea, a sound recommendation from the dive shop on Little Corn. It was a long way, but a pretty drive especially when the road started to hug the sea. Coconut trees leaned and followed the warm wind, while anchored boats floated in the water. Our room at Anastasia’s came with two beds, satellite TV, and private bathroom for the same price as our hut at Derek’s. Our door opened up to a porch with small steps to the shallow water. Anchovies swayed with the waves like blades of grass. The view was incredible: infinite turquoise waters and a wooden bridge which connected the hotel to their bar and restaurant on stilts. But after closer inspection, Anastasia, with the rest of the island, became antiquated before our eyes and just became eery. (And I was sober.) The cheesy fish and shell decor in the hallway was a much better choice than bustling Managua, but something was amiss. It was time to go home.

Where to stay in Little Corn Island, Nicaragua: Derek’s Place
Where we stayed in Big Corn Island, Nicaragua: Anastasia’s on the Sea

Related post/s:
Little Corn Island photos on Flickr
Big Corn Island photos on Flickr

We left Morgan’s Rock feeling a little spoiled. The manager gave us a ride to San Juan which helped us save $60. From San Juan, we got on a cab to the Rivas bus station. Along the way, we were stopped by some cops doing routine inspection. All six of us showed our IDs and passports. (The car fit four comfortably, but of course, the driver made six people fit.) When I asked the lady next to me why the inspection was necessary, she mentioned that drugs from Costa Rica are smuggled through San Juan. Her nail polish was peeling and her denim skirt was two sizes too small for her. I wished the cops would check her ID more carefully. In Rivas, we had an hour to kill before the bus to Managua was scheduled to depart. Kids were constantly asking us to buy food and drinks from them. We didn’t need to buy food because the staff at Morgan’s Rock packed us a couple of sandwiches for lunch and even gave me ceviche in a Ziploc. I ended up paying one of the boys 5 cordovas to walk me inside the food market and direct me to the public bathroom, though. He also asked one of the vendors for a plastic fork so that we could eat our ceviche. The ride was, as usual, bumpy and loud, but we made it back to Managua safely.

At Oscar Fonseca’s house, we unpacked before we walked around the neighborhood to look for dinner. If you’re planning a trip to Nicaragua, I recommend to skip this sooty city. There wasn’t really anything exciting about it. To our delight, we saw a Pollo Campero sign near one of the rotundas, a chicken fast food place we learned about while in El Salvador. We cabbed it to the main park but there was nothing there except an old church and a fountain. Before heading back home, we stopped by a fruit stand to buy a whole watermelon. That night, feeling a little disappointed with our experience with Nicaragua’s volcanoes so far, we decided to postpone our flight to the Caribbean coast and stay one more day in Managua to make a day trip to León, home of Cerro Negro, or the Black Hill.

The next morning, we woke up very early to catch the 5:30am shuttle van to León, Nicaragua’s “intellectual” city. It only took an hour to get there because half of the country was still asleep, but it took almost two hours before we could find a restaurant open for business. I was so grouchy when we finally found breakfast at Comedor Lucia that I ordered a chicken leg with my scrambled eggs. After eating, we met up with Hector at the Va Pues Tour office inside the Cocinarte restaurant-cum-artist hangout. It was a last-minute arrangement and we couldn’t risk just asking one of the locals for a much cheaper ride to Cerro Negro, so we ended up shelling out $90 for the two of us to hike the crater.

We got on the pickup truck and our driver negotiated the dry mud along the way while Hector told us about his life. He was young and energetic and seemed really thrilled that Chinese-looking people like us could speak Spanish. It was a long drive and we only saw one sign directing us towards the volcano. We tried to convince ourselves that we made the right decision in paying so much money to get us there.

As soon as we started our hike up Cerro Negro, I knew it was going to be a completely different experience from Mombacho or Apoyo. The small stones crunched as we stepped on them. It was like hiking on powdered snow: step up, crunch, slide down, repeat. From afar, we could see how much damage the lava from its last eruption affected the valley. There was no vegetation, only hardened asphalt. Steam was coming out from some of the rocks. I scooped up some to take home as souveneir and was amazed at how hot they were. One section of the hill was completely covered in yellow sulphur.

It was really windy when we reached the top. But the crater was right below us and it was an amazing sight. (Okay, so the $90 was worth it.) Now, this is a crater, I thought. Weirdly enough, crickets and grasshoppers were hopping all over the place. The heat attracted them, but they would die instantly when they would land on the steaming rocks for too long. After several photographs from the top, we readied ourselves for what was to come next: sliding and surfing down the other side of Cerro Negro. If we paid a little more money, we could have rented mini-boards to suit up and ride down like snowboarders. But we just decided to slide down without any props. It was longer than I expected but it was so much fun. The stones gave easily and I couldn’t help but squeal every time I slid without interruption. I imagined our entire surrounding was how the moon would look like. Everything was black and pure. I’ve never seen anything like Cerro Negro before and I’ve definitely never slid down a volcano in my life.

Back in León, we walked to the market to look for lunch. It was so hot, we were the only ones out on the streets. Inside the market, we saw several ladies serving up homecooked meals to the locals. It was my self-imposed rule in Nicaragua: find the fat lady who looks like she can cook as well as she can eat. We picked the largest woman in the group and sat down on one of the plastic chairs with our order. We were sweating when we came down the volcano and we were still sweating while we ate. We still have to go back to Managua at the end of the day but we definitely knew it was time for some beach time.

Where we stayed in Managua, Nicaragua: Oscar Fonseca’s House
Our tour guide to Cerro Negro: Va Pues Tours

Related post/s:
Cerro Negro photos on Flickr
Managua, Nicaragua photos on Flickr

As soon as we landed in Managua, we were picked up by Victor and driven about thirty minutes to Granada, the oldest city in Central America and yet the most developed destination in Nicaragua. Our home for three nights was Hospedaje La Siesta on Calle El Almendro, a modest room with private bath for $15 a night owned by a French-Nicaraguan couple awaiting their first child. It was the middle of the day when we checked in. It was hot, and since our flight out of New York was at 6am, we immediately fell asleep. We woke up just before the sun started to set and decided to walk to Parque Central to look for food.

Granada had a Oaxacan feel to it. Old buildings repainted in vibrant colors; beat-up sedans co-exist with horse carriages on cobble stone streets. The locals congregated in the park enjoying the warm early night breeze, while street vendors packed up their wares, as if thinking, Tomorrow is another day.

We ended up eating at Señora Olga’s for dinner. It wasn’t a restaurant but a woman grilling chicken on the corner of Avenida Bodan. We ate our plates of barbequed chicken with a mountain of tostones, fried raw plantains, and maduros, fried ripe plantains, with coleslaw (35 cordovas apiece or $2) on plastic tables and chairs. We heard the loud singing from the small church across the street. There were young boys playing football on the other side, screaming, while mangy dogs waited for our leftovers. The lights turned off–a blackout–and for a while, we ate in the dark. We ended up eating at Señora Olga’s a second time. To us, it was the best option in Granada, less we chose to eat pizza or pasta.

The next day, we woke up early to hike Volcán Mombacho. We passed by the central market in search of breakfast. We stopped by a stall that had a sign on it, Desayuno, Breakfast, and ordered a plate of the gallo pinto: rice, red beans and huevos rancheros, or scrambled eggs with tomatoes and onions. The big lady who ran the show was a bit disappointed that we didn’t touch the Jell-O-like tamal on our plates.

At Shell Palmira, our foreign-looking selves were guided to a souped-up school bus to Mombacho. The ride took only twenty minutes and the conductor told us when it was time for us to get off. From the highway, we walked about a mile until we reached the Biological Center. We paid our 100 cordovas ($5) to enter the Reserve. One of the uniformed rangers told us that we have to wait for two hours for the shuttle that will take us to the top of the volcano. It was only 8:30am so we decided to hike the almost-vertical concrete path ourselves. Well, the 3,000-feet hike up took us two hours. At the top, we learned that there were two craters, Sendero el Cráter and Sendero la Puma. We were so exhausted from our hike, we only had strength left for the 25-minute walk around Sendero el Cráter and not the estimated 3-hour Puma. Volcán Mombacho is now practically a forest; privately-owned coffee plantations and cattle ranchers cover the rest of the land. From the lookout points, we could see Lake Cocibolca, Nicaragua’s largest lake, and Las Isletas, the islets believed to have come from the last major eruption.

On our way down, I convinced the Dr. to zipline. We’ve never done a canopy tour before, so we gave up $50 to belay and zip to fifteen platforms and give ourselves a thrill by doing “the Superman” and “the upside-down.” The entire course runs 1,500 meters and there was even a hanging (and shaky) rope bridge to cross from one of the platforms. We rappeled from a large ceiba tree 23 meters down to one of the farms to finish. It was beautiful up there. We could see the lake from some of the platforms. The massive trees looked so alive with orchids and ferns growing from their branches. At the end of the course, our guides radioed the base camp and had us picked up. We were given a ride all the way down to the Biological Center, so all we had to do was walk the last 30 minutes to the highway to catch the bus back to Granada.

On our last day in Granada, we had breakfast at Nica Buffet, a Dutch-owned restaurant, where we had pancakes and, finally, good coffee. The owner recommended that we sign up with Hostal Oasis to visit Laguna de Apoyo for the day. For about $30, we joined a few other young couples and got on a van to go to Crater’s Edge, where we spent the entire day lazing by the lake. It was too hot to do anything; too hot to kayak, too hot to hike, even too hot to sunbathe. The swimming hole is 48 square-kilometers and it’s trapped inside the crater of Volcán Apoyo. It’s one of the cleanest and deepest (at about 650 feet) lagoons in the country. It got kind of boring after a few hours of sitting prettily. We finished our books under the shade and we were anxious to keep moving.

Back in town, we paid $1 each to go up the bell tower of La Merced Church and watch the sun set. We could see everything from up there. The courtyards and the roofs even reminded me of Prague; the church domes of Barcelona. We walked to the malecon and said our goodbyes to Granada as the sun went down like a red-orange yolk.

Where to stay in Granada, Nicaragua: Hospedaje La Siesta

Related post/s:
Granada, Nicaragua photos on Flickr
Volcan Mombacho photos on Flickr
Laguna de Apoyo photos on Flickr