The Grand Nicaraguan Finale

Since so much has happened over the past three weeks here, this blog is going to be a real doosie. I'm also going to break it into a few different parts, so it's not one giant post, more like chapters. So sit back, take off your shoes, stay awhile, get some coffee maybe, and read at your pleasure...


The Plan:
Managua

 I just got back from what I'll consider the most epic adventure in Nicaragua (and probably of my life) so far. It all started about three weeks ago. We were all getting anxious lingering around Managua, waiting  to take our final exams. There were still a few more places we wanted to see here. First, Bobbi, Zoe and I agreed to go to the Isla de Ometepe as soon as our finals were over. Isla de Ometepe is an island made out of two massive (and still active) volcanoes that sits in the middle of the great Lago de Nicaragua. A week later, Zoe's brother, Eli, was to come down to visit from Oregon and we then planned to visit the Caribbean side of Nicaragua as we have heard many fantastic things about it. Zoe and I were talking during finals week and she asked, "What if you went straight from Ometepe to the Caribbean and met Sheena (who was already going to be there) before my brother and I show up at the Corn Islands?" I sort of joked about it at the time, but when I got home later that day, I looked at my map of Nicaragua. Connecting the Lago de Nicaragua and the Caribbean Sea is the mythical Rio San Juan, the river that we had already visited as a part of our official group outings. It looked like I could go from the lake all the way to the sea. But could it really be done? I was overcome with a raw sense of adventure. I was going to try it.

I grabbed my Lonely Planet guide book to see how it could be done. Indeed, there was a ferry that could take me from Isla de Ometepe all the way across the lake, where it meets the mouth of the Rio San Juan in the town of San Carlos. From there, I could take a boat ride through the entirety of the river and end up where it meets the Caribbean Sea in the town of San Juan de Nicaragua. However, according to the guidebook, which was from 2009, there was still no ferry system that could take me north up the coast to the Caribbean port town of Bluefields, where my friend Sheena would be waiting. It did provide this however, "Weather permitting, you can hop on commercial fishing boats for the 4 hour trip to Bluefields." It also led on to say that there was talk of a ferry system, but it was anyones' guess when it will be actually built. Sounds easy enough, right? A long trip, but it seemed possible. At this point, I was beyond excited to try it. This would be the grand adventure to cap off my whole experience here. I packed up my backpack with nearly all of my clothes as well as some extra bugspray, sunscreen, running shoes, hammock, and Rockies' hat. My original 5-6 day trip to Ometepe was changed to a two and a half week adventure through several parts of the country, so I wanted to be as prepared as possible. On Thursday the 15th of November, Bobbi, Zoe, and I boarded a rickety old school bus and were off to the town of Rivas to catch the ferry to Ometepe.

Pt. 1: The Island in the Lake

Isla de Ometepe

Isla de Ometepe. Volcán Concepción on the left. Maderas on the right

Looking at the Isla de Ometepe towering over the Lago de Nicaragua for the first time is surreal. Not one, but two humungous volcanoes rising out of the water, their peaks usually covered by clouds. I read somewhere that it is on the short list for the seven natural wonders of the world. According to Aztec legend, while some believed they had found the promise land in what is now Mexico City, others continued south until they arrives on the shores of the Lago de Nicaragua (or Cocibolca they called it) and saw Ometepe for the first time. It would be kind of hard not to think you had found the promise land at that point. Even after staying on the island, it was always interesting to think that people actually live there; born and raised on a volcanic island in the middle of a lake. Anyways, we took the ferry from San Jorge and wound up in the town of Moyogalpa on the island an hour later and found a hostal. Moyogalpa is rad. It's small, peaceful, and always visible looming over everything is the 1600m (1 mile) high Volcán Concepcion, still very much alive. I took way too many pictures. The two things we do at every place we wind up in here is a. find a cool place to swim and b. rent bikes. The next day we enjoyed our day on the black volcanic sanded beaches on the lake and later that afternoon, we attempted making spaghetti out using an old stove and a metal mixing bowl as a pot. It turned out pretty good although that stove ended up blowing up the a few days later when Sheena tried to use the oven to make brownies. The only casualty: all of the leg hair of poor Andy, the Scottish backpacker who was stranded on the island cause his credit card got stolen. The oven exploded just as he walked by.

      Zoe and I returned to the beach to check out the sunset that many had told us was awesome over the lake. After the sun went down, it got dark really quickly and once we reached the road, there wasn't a taxi or bus in sight, so we decided to start walking towards town hoping someone would pass by that could take us. This is when things started to feel like an episode of the Twilight Zone. It got really dark all of the sudden and the only lights were from the occasional passing motorcycle, but there were no houses around. We continued in the dark seeing nothing for a few minutes when out of nowhere, across the street appeared this tiki bar. It was weird cause it was well lit, but there was absolutely nothing around it. We figured we could check it out to see if anyone knew how we could get back to Moyogalpa. The bar was empty, save for some quirky reggae and latin jazz music. "Buenas!" I yelled to see if anyone was there. From the behind the bar appears Francesco, a scruffy, late twenties looking Italian man. He spoke Spanish, Portuguese, English, and Italian, and had just recently started this bar. We asked him if there were any buses that still pass by, he said that there were two left for the day and one would pass by in about 30 minutes. With some time to kill, we ordered some drinks and Fancesco gave us some free popcorn. Just ten minutes later, the bus passes. We hurriedly payed for our drinks while Francesco ran out to the street to try and delay the bus. The bus would have none of that as it stopped for about five seconds than sped away as we ran after it. "There's still one last bus, right?" I asked. "Sure, in about an hour." Francesco replied. Well, back to the bar for another round!

   We drank and talked and I shared my plans of making it to the Caribbean from Ometepe with Francesco. He said that he had done it before a few years back and that he wouldn't recommend it as there was no ferry from the Rio San Juan to Bluefields. I was already aware that there was no official boat, and since it had been a few years since he had done it, I was still confident I could do it. About an hour later, Zoe and I paid again for our drinks and waited outside across the street for the bus. Out of the darkness, the bus approached. I waived to signal for it to stop, but the bus did not stop, nor even slow down. We franticly waived and hollered, but it quickly shot by and disappeared down the road. "It didn't even see us!" Zoe said. I eyed the glowing tiki bar across the street. "Zoe, I don't think we can ever leave this place. I think we're dead and this is hell." I replied. It all seemed really surreal. It felt as if we weren't allowed to leave. Stuck in a tiki bar in the middle of nowhere that served pizza with nice music run by a peculiar Itialian immigrant on a volcanic island in Nicaragua, and no chance of escape. Well, back to the bar!

Fancesco's bar.

We went back into the bar to find a few people had come in for some pizza and drinks. We told Francesco what happened and I waited for him to reply "Of course you can't leave! You're in hell!" This was also after once we sat back down again, the music had started to repeat, then skip for about a minute. It wall all too weird. But he said no such things. Instead, he offered to give us a ride back to Moyogalpa as soon as he finished serving his tables. He fed us popcorn and we ordered a few more rounds then he took us back to our hostal in his jeep a bit after. We had escaped hell.


The next day we rented some bikes and went a full 3 for 3 on getting a flat tire in the middle of nowhere. At this point I was well practiced and found a bus about a mile down the road. Also, Zoe and I had wanted to climb one of the volcanoes, and I thought, well if were gonna climb them, let's do the bigger one: Volcán Concepcion. Concepcion is the second highest volcano in Nicaragua, but since the tallest, San Cristobol, erupted a few months ago, we were technically hiking the biggest volcano you could in the country. I'll take it. We met a guide, Walter (despite the name, Walter is a Nica born and raised in Moyogalpa), and I told him we wanted to go to the top. He said that would depend on our physical condition and if the volcano doesn't act up while were on it, but that you can do it. At 5am the next morning, we were off.

     The hike started off in the dense jungle and we eyed some cool trees and listened for howler monkeys. Once at the actual incline of the volcano, it got real steep. We would grab onto vines and trees to pull us up. After a few hours, we arrived at the halfway point of the ascent where the trees give way to grass and rocks. The top of the volcano was right over us. The guide asked us if we wanted to go all the way. We were all up for it. I mean, it was right there. How could it take two more hours to get there? My ignorance was rather quickly wiped away as we clung to the slick volcanic rocks at a 45 degree incline, struggling to find the right footing. The last kilometer, I was on all fours, crawling up the slope like a spider monkey. The sulfury, fire-crackery smell of steam filled the air and the wind was constantly trying to blow us off the mountain. Concepción made Cerro Negro, the little volcano I climbed a few months ago, seem like lovely stroll on the beach. The best part of it all was our guide Walter, who made the hike look just like that. He walked casually, hands in his pockets, talking on his walkie-talkie occasionally, not even breathing hard. My Colorado advantage has nothing out here. It was only near the top, I saw Walter use his hands to point out where the steam was coming out of the ground. A few minuted later, he ran ahead. "It's right here! The top!" he yelled. The top was pure sand. I sprinted up there on all fours to meet him there. I stood up, hi-fived Walter, took a picture, then fell onto my back and just laid there completely exhausted. The view was incredible. Visible were the volcanoes across the border in Costa Rica, as well as the Pacific Ocean. Down below was the caldera with various pillars of steam coming out. The top was extremely windy. I got some mouthfuls of sand for a few minutes when I heard "Alright! Back down!" All that effort getting up there, I almost forgot we had to go down the damn thing. The slick rock at such an incline was not so freaky going up, but down is a whole other animal. After slipping and sliding down the rocks, we eventually made it to the tree line and my legs were completely rubbery. This made it extremely easy to roll and ankle, which I did... three times...all on the same ankle. It still hurts a bit. After what felt like an eternity, we arrived back at the trailhead and the van. I hobbled over and got in. We had done it. I barely survived. That might have been the most physically exhausting thing I've ever done in my life. Still, it was cool to look up at Concepción for the rest of our time on the island and think "Ya, I was up there." I was sore for days.


Pt 2. The Journey to the Coast
Isla de Ometepe----Lago de Nicaragua----Rio San Juan

Town of San Carlos at sunrise.

I was sitting under a thatched roof hut decorated with Christmas lights at the ferry station outside of the town of Altagracia on the Isla de Ometepe. I had been on the island for five days and I loved it. I think it may be my favorite place I went to this whole time out here. Now I was on my own with the intent of making it all the way to Bluefields on the Caribbean side by lake, river, and sea. Someone had a small radio on scratching out the finest latino Christmas music. Other than the music and lights, it was kind of hard for me to believe that it was getting close to Christmas when it's 90 and humid out. I wonder if Santa ever climbed Volcán Concepción. We pulled off the island in the ferry at about 7pm. Since it was going to be a nine or more hour trip to the town San Carlos, I searched for a good place to sleep. I had brought my hammock along with me and saw this as the perfect moment to use it. I set it up on the side of the boat and laid there for awhile. It was incredible. It was pretty windy out on the lake and the boat was rocking every direction, spraying me on occasion. Also, the moon was out illuminating Ometepe's dual volcanic peaks over the water and all sorts of stars were out. I put on the only music appropriate for such an occasion: Paul Oakenfold's Perfecto Presents Another World (CD 2). Then it came to actually attempting some sleep. I slept for maybe an hour and then woke up FREEZING. The winds had drastically dropped in temperature without the sun and I was only in shorts and a t-shirt, so I put on my rain jacket and some jeans. I had no blankets and my socks were too dirty from the hike, so I got out my towel and wrapped it around my legs. (Side note: I don't know if you've read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but in that book, Michael Douglas states that remembering a towel is one of the most important things one can do when traveling. It can serve many purposes other than drying yourself. Always bring your towel).

I slept off and on for a few hours, drastically underprepared for how cold it got during the trip, and arrived in San Carlos at sunrise. When I got off the boat, I found out that there was no boat to San Juan de Nicaragua, the town on the other end of the river, until the next day. So I was going to spend a night somewhere along the Rio San Juan. I took the next river boat to the town of Los Sábalos, a small town that sits on one of the many rivers that branch off of the San Juan. A few months ago when I was in the river with our group, I told myself that if I ever came down here again, I would try to rent a traditional canoe and ride it around. As soon as I found a hostal when I got to Los Sábalos, I asked the family running it if they knew where I could rent a canoe. They talked for a second then asked me, "Do you want a guide or just the canoe?" I told them just a canoe and the son of the family took me down to the river bank. "You can borrow ours." He told me. This shocked me that they didn't ask for any amount of payment. I saw the canoe and it was exactly what I wanted: a traditional, hand carved canoe made out of a single tree trunk. The paddle too, hand made. I was stoked, but also nervous. These aren't the nice big canoes with flat bottoms, these things were unstable as hell, and they leak so you have to shove water out every so often.

"Do you know how to use one of these things?" The son asked me.

"Sí..." I said half-certainly. It had been awhile since I've canoed, and I don't think ever alone, nor in a river. There was a pause.

"Do you know how to swim at least?" "Of course", I replied. And that was it. No fee. No waivers. He just told me were to pull it ashore when I was done using it. Awesome. I paddled away. I was pretty unstable at first and kept spinning in circles cause, but I got the hand of it quick. I went up the Rio Sábalos which was very calm with barely even a current. It was amazing. Paddling up this tropical river in a hand made canoe, the way they've done it here since before the Spanish arrived. On either side of me, huge trees and vines rose and leaned out over the river. Howler monkeys hollered in the woods and families in their wooden stilted houses stared at the gringo with the stupid grin on his face as he sloppily paddled by. It was all going great when "CROCODILE!" Oh wait, that's just a log. "BUBBLES FROM A CROCODILE!" Oh that's just a fish. There were no crocodiles luckily and I paddled up the river until my arms got too sore then turned back. My day in Los Sábalos was a huge success and I congratulated myself to a Toña at a bar overlooking the town and river as someone somewhere was setting off fireworks, something strangely uncommon here.

The next morning at around 6, I checked out of my hostal and went to wait down at the dock for the fast river boat to San Juan de Nicaragua. The teenage looking soldier with the large AK-47 strapped to his back there told me that the boat should pass by sometime in the morning. A few hours later, a green boat with two Ché and a "Dios Bendiga a Mi Camino" (God bless my path) sticker on the front bumped into the dock. This might have been the funnest part of my journey to the Caribbean. Unlike the regular river boats I was used to taking, the fast boat is, well, fast as hell. We absolutely burned down the Rio San Juan in the complete opposite manner as the nice canoe I had ridden the day before. Walls of jungle lined the shores making for some great GoPro footy. We bounced over waves and made sweeping banking turnes, avoiding logs in the river as a result of the deforestation on the Costa Rica side from the road they're building. We would stop every hour or so at various military posts along the river where more very young soldiers with large automatic rifles would search my backpack and check my passport. Since it was packed with my stinky sweaty clothes, I got a kick out of every time they'd open my bag and get that "God damnit" look on their face. Most just eyed it and closed it back up.

Pt 3: El Danto
San Juan De Nicaragua

Cruising down the Rio San Juan

I was walking up the shoreline towards the dock with  in the swampy river town of San Juan de Nicaragua at 6am when I started to hear a boat approaching. It was playing reggae music that got louder and louder as it approached. The boat was a sailboat with a motor and was decked out in rasta colors. It bumped up against the dock. I stared in awe. Then, a dreaded, creole-speaking, rasta fisherman jumped of the boat and landed next to me.

"A'right, my friend! I 'ear dat you go to Bluefields. We go to Bluefields, too! Git on de boat and we will go right now, no problem!"

Oh hell ya! Completely stoked, I lept off the dock onto the boat and we pulled away. We sailed up Nicaragua's Caribbean coast blasting roots reggae and fishing. I could not believe how I ended up in this situation. This was how I was going to complete my voyage to Bluefields!? I never felt happier. Then all of the sudden, everything started to get dark and fade away......

 Then I woke up. I was staring at the ceiling of my room in a tiny hostal in San Juan de Nicaragua. I had been stuck here since I had arrived two days prior. This was the hardest leg of the trip as according to my book published a few years back, there was no ferry from San Juan to Bluefields. After arriving in San Juan in the late afternoon, I immediately asked around to see if they had a boat now. Indeed there was, and it left the next morning. I was gonna make it! I had just lucked out too because apparently it only left one day a week.

 I went back to my room just as some rain had started. I felt victorious. The next morning, I found the house of the guy who operates the boat to Bluefields. He had some bad news. He told me that he was not going to go to Bluefields that day because the navy wasn't allowing small transport boats into the Caribbean. It turns out that what was the most intense rain storm I had experienced in my life the night before, which sounded like someone was aiming a fire-hose at my roof, caused my room to leak water (on the second floor), and the power to shut off, made for some pretty high seas offshore. He also told me he wasn't going to leave anyway cause his boat holds about 30 people and I was the only one who wanted to go. However, he did provide me with some good news. There were a couple of small cargo boats that haul gasoline between San Juan and Bluefields and that I might be able to hitch a ride on one. He pointed me the way to the other dock about 15 minutes down the shore. "Ask for the boat called El Danto." he told me. I walked past backyards, abandoned hotels, and staring faces all the way to the other end of town to the docks. When I found the other docks, I saw the Danto, a medium sized, green boat with oil drums sitting on its flat top. It had just arrived from Bluefields that morning. I asked the captain if his boat goes to Bluefields and he told me it does. Then whether or not it was leaving today and he told me no. It had to go up the Rio San Juan to dredge out an area. "But we might go tomorrow. We'll be back later today if you want to ask then." With some time to kill, I walked around town to see if there was anyone else going to Bluefields. It turns out that because of the high seas offshore, no fisherman was going out there with their tiny motorboats. El Danto would be my only chance. I went back to the docks later that day and it was still not back. One guy told me that it wasn't going to come back until the next day in the afternoon. When I told him the capitan told me that it would come back today, he told me I might be right. This is when things started to get frustrating. The problem was that no one really knew anything about when the boat would come back. I asked almost everyone in town and they all gave me differing answers. When one would say it already left for Bluefields, I told them no that it was somewhere in the river dredging. They then would agree with me and tell me I was right. Someone else would tell me it wouldn't return until Sunday, I told them it was coming back that afternoon, then they'd suddenly agree with me again.

  I thought I was only going to have to stay in San Juan de Nicaragua for a night, but after the Danto didn't return that day, I had to stay another. Most had told me it would come the next day. Since the time in which it would arrive differed among everybody, I woke up at 5:30 the next morning to see if it had come back. I walked back and forth from my hostal to the docks roughly every hour to wait at the docks for this one boat. I wondered what the locals thought as they stared at me pass by their back porch every half hour with all of my stuff. "The legend of the Gringo. From dusk til dawn, he'd walk down to the docks and back, hopelessly waiting for a boat that would never come back." I was stared at way more often cause San Juan de Nicaragua doesn't get many tourists. I couldn't wait for this boat forever, though. Since there were no ATM's in San Juan, my cash was starting to run low. To save money, I would buy $1 loafs of bread to tide me over enough to only have to pay for two meals a day. Moreover, Sheena had already arrived in Bluefields the day before from Managua and waiting for me to get there. I didn't want to keep her waiting much longer. When 5pm rolled around, El Danto hadn't shown like they said it would. Most then changed their answers to 5pm tomorrow, but I knew they didn't know for sure. Pessimism started to creep in. I was so close, there had to be a way to get there. I stayed another night hoping El Danto would come back the next day. Again at 5:30 in the morning, I left my room with all of my stuff and headed down for the docks to wait for it. Around four that afternoon, after another round or two of asking the locals when the Danto would return, and old man who worked at the docks came up to me. He asked me if I was trying to get to Bluefields. I told him yes.

"You know, the Danto could take you there." he says.

"I KNOW! I've been waiting for it for two days now. It's out in the river dredging and it should be back today!"

He laughes, "Ya it should be back tonight, and when it comes back, it usually leaves the next morning around three of four."

I was gonna make it!

 "I know the boss who oversees the dredging project. I'll call him up for you so we can find out when it's coming back."

I nervously watch him dial his phone and call the boss. After a bit of small talk, the old man asks him about the Danto. More bad news. The guy on the phone said that the Danto hadn't finished dredging and that it had to come back to gather more supplies, but that wouldn't be until Sunday (it was a Friday at the time). The old man hung up. "Sorry, man. It looks like it won't be back until Sunday and that once it finishes its job, it will go to Bluefields but that may not be until Tuesday or something. You'd better go back San Carlos and try another way." My naive sense of adventure gave away to full blown pessimism. I was defeated. All of my progress: The epic ferry ride from Ometepe, the canoe on the river, the fast boat to San Juan, the waiting for two days for this goddamn boat, all for nothing. I had to turn around and go back all the way up the river to San Carlos and then try to get to Bluefields by bus, which would be horrible. For those familiar with the Colorado area, to put my trip in perspective, I had just driven from say Green River, Utah and made it all the way to Boulder in hopes to get to Denver. But, since there was no possible way to get from Boulder to Denver, I had to drive all the way back to Grand Junction to take a different road to Denver. It was like that, only I had no car and had to use public transportation. To salten the wound, there wasn't a fast boat for the usual six hour trip up the river until Sunday, so I had to take the slow boat the next morning at five for a lovely 11 hour boat ride. Here's the BEST part. At five-ish the next morning, I sleepily got on the boat to San Carlos and we pulled off the dock. As we puttered down the shore towards the other dock I had been waiting at for nearly three days, guess what boat was there unloading its cargo.... EL DANTO!!! It wasn't supposed to get back for another few days. Had it finished its duty overnight and come back early? Was it preparing to go to Bluefields!? I was beyond angry. Even the boss of the project had no idea when his OWN boat would come back! I would never find out either way, but I swear to God if I saw that stupid boat pull into Bluefields the next day, someone was getting choked. We passed by the Danto and I just stared at it until it was out of sight.

If there was one thing I learned from my failed attempt at going from Ometepe to Bluefields was that it was indeed possible, just not for me. I vow to return there and try it again some day. Next time, I'm bringing my own boat.


Pt. 4: To the Coast in 31 hours
Rio San Juan-----San Carlos----Juigalpa----El Rama----Bluefields----Pearl Lagoon

After my failed attempts at reaching Bluefields from San Juan de Nicaragua, I found myself going back to where I started. Screw the tiki bar on Ometepe, this was going to be hell. The boat from San Juan left an hour before the sunrise. I arrived in San Carlos as the sun was setting. Although, it was easy to pass time. The scenery in that part of the country is incredible and you can spot all kinds of turtles, birds, monkeys and Pandora-sized trees as you go along. I checked my book to see how I could make it to Bluefields from San Carlos. It looked like I would have to take a 5-7 hour bus ride from San Carlos to a town called Juigalpa. Then, from there I would have to wait until around 6am for the buses to start running again and take a different bus to a town named El Rama. After Rama, there are no roads that reach it to the coast and Bluefields, so it looked like another boat down a different river that would get me there. After I told Sheena the horrible news that I had to turn back, she decided to go a bit north up the coast to a place called Pearl Lagoon, so I would have to take another boat to there once I arrived in Bluefields. It looked like a long and terrible way to go, but it was my only option and I just wanted to get there as fast as possible. I had wasted too much time.

Christmas lights in the reggae bar at Pearl Lagoon.

Luckily, I had met a nice guy on the boat, Uriel, who lived in Juigalpa, where I was to go to next. He said that he and his friend have a guy coming to pick them up in San Carlos and was heading to Juigalpa and he offered to give me a ride. I gladly accepted the offer. A few hours after arriving in San Carlos, Uriel's friend showed up in a nice pickup truck and we took off north to Juigalpa. Now the guidebook says it's a 5-7 hour bus ride to Juigalpa; we got there in 2. We absolutely hauled ass, swerving around slow cars, horses, and drunks laying in the street. I had made such good time that I was able to catch the overnight bus to Rama that left from Managua as it passed through town. Around 11:30 that night, I got on the bus and thanked Uriel, who waited with me on the side of the road so I didn't get mugged.

The bus from Juigalpa to El Rama was four hours of pure evil. We barreled down the highway in an old Blue-Bird bus with "comfy" seats that reclined, although you have no extra space when you're sitting next to someone. Being awake for so long, I attempted some sleep by resting my head on the window. However, this highway had tons of bumps and potholes, so I was constantly getting my head bashed against the window and the seas in front of me. The drive goes over some mountains, and I swear on the way down we hit about 85 in that bus in the dead of night, swerving and bumping the whole way. We eventually arrived in El Rama at 3am and nine hours and two choppy boat rides later, we tied the boat up at the dock in Pearl Lagoon around 12pm on Sunday. After 31 hours of straight traveling without any sleep I finally made it. I had never been happier to see Sheena. That night, we had a delicious dinner of Run Down, a seafood soup cooked with coconut water, and listened to reggae in a thatched roof bar wrapped with Christmas lights. Since I had watched the sun rise, set, rise, then set again without sleeping, you can be sure that I slept like a rock that night, even though the sharp springs from my mattress poking out were trying to scratch my legs. Hey, it only cost $6 per night!

Pt. 5: Land Ho!
Bluefields----Corn Islands

After a night in Pearl Lagoon, Sheena and I headed back to Bluefields to see when we could catch the boat out to the Corn Islands, where Zoe and her brother, Eli, would be arriving by plane in a few days. We found out when we got there that the boat for the Corn Islands until Wednesday, so we went around trying to see if there was anyone else that could take us. We stayed there for two nights which wasn't as awful as waiting in San Juan de Nicaragua cause I was with Sheena and Bluefields was a bit more populated. Unfortunately, Sheena realized that she did not have enough time to make it to Corn Islands and back due to other plans she made back in the town she works in, so she had to return to Managua on Wednesday. I was on my own again to take the ferry out there. The journey from Bluefields to Great Corn Island, after all the boats, trucks, and buses I had taken over the past few days, was hands down the most legendary and crazy trip in my life. The weather had been crappy over the sea all week, so this made for some massive swells. Our ferry, although fairly big, got every piece of them. The bow would tip way, way up, then drop all the way down and smash into the surface where walls of water would rise up and crash all over the boat. Those of us outside stood on the front and clung on to the handrail for dear life. It looked like an episode of Deadliest Catch, or maybe the beginning of Shutter Island. Some people would puke off the side of the boat. Others were more hardcore, like this group of Nica fishermen I hung out with who brought their own bottle of Cañita, the worst of the worst (but seductively cheap) rum and were taking turns drinking out of it in between cigarette drags. "This weather's great! This is nothing!" they told me, hardly even holding on as the boat pitched and rolled every direction, splashing water everywhere.

Beach on Little Corn Island.

  This goes on for five hours until we got to Great Corn Island, the bigger of the two Corn Islands, and finally got on dry (although still pouring rain) land. I found a place to stay and Zoe and her brother arrived soon after. We spent four days on the Corn Islands, two on the big one and two one the smaller one. I liked Little Corn Island a lot. It's so small, there are no cars or roads even on the island. The only way around are concrete and mud paths that take you through the jungle to the various beaches. While on the islands, our activities included beaching, swimming, walking barefoot through the jungle, snorkeling, trying to understand and speak English Creole, and more beaching. Both islands were really awesome and I would totally go back and explore around some more. We left the Corn Islands that Sunday. This time it was by plane. Right before I left to go to Isla de Ometepe, I purchased a one way ticket from Corn Island to Managua. After all the traveling by land and sea, I felt like it was an early Christmas present to myself. An hour flight later, we arrived in Managua. It was a three week trip to get to the Corn Islands, only an hour to fly back. Looking back, it was completely worth it. We landed at the airport in Managua and I got a similar feeling that I would get landing at my hometown airport of DIA. I was home. I hadn't seen my host family for weeks, so I was excited to tell them all about my adventure. I then realized that only two days later, I was going home home, back to the States, and I'd have to tell people about the last five months of being out here, not just the last two weeks. Man, time flew by.

Here's a map of Nicaragua showing everywhere I went during the three week trip. I started in Managua and went down all the way to the bottom right most point. That's San Juan de Nicaragua, where I got stuck. As you can see I was extremely close to my objective in Bluefields. The lines in the middle are my route back tracking to finally get there. The island in the lake is Ometepe obviously and the point in the Caribbean are the Corn Islands.