LITTLE CORN ISLAND, Nicaragua (18 Jan 2008) — This is the way you picture island resorts looking 50 years ago. Standing on the tiny municipal pier of Little Corn Island, about 40 miles off eastern Nicaragua, I can see fishermen, pastel casitas and jungle. It is bliss, but it's no St. Bart's. If your idea of a Caribbean vacation includes facials, room service and $25 breakfasts, go to the islands whose names start with Saint. But if strapping on a pair of hiking boots, slathering yourself in high-test mosquito repellent and trekking through the jungle to deserted beaches quickens your pulse, Little Corn or its sister, Great (also called Big) Corn, are your ticket. High-end amenities include hot water, 24-hour electricity and $11 lobster dinners. During my visit there last January, I overheard Canadian and European tourists say, "I wanted to go to Costa Rica, but it's too expensive and built-up." So they're here instead, at a place with no golf resorts, few tourists and zero paparazzi. It's a place poised somewhere between adolescence and adulthood, striving to be St. Thomas but still in its awkward stage – treehouses and jungle cabins. When I told friends I was going to the Corn Islands for adventure and cheap lobster, their faces went blank. They shouldn't have felt embarrassed about their geographical ignorance. The Corns are far off the travel grid, but the payoff is solitude, scenery and some of the best fishing, diving and snorkeling in the Caribbean, at bargain prices. The bonus: no driving necessary. On Great Corn, there are only rented golf carts ($31 for three hours) and taxis ($1 per person anywhere on the island) for tourists; on Little Corn, there are no cars – or roads for that matter. All the better for what I had in mind. Casa Iguana is summer camp for grown-ups. I was immediately smitten with my no-frills cabin with a double mattress atop a wooden frame, a sofa that had seen better days and especially the view from my patio facing the sea, all for $55 a night. I had my own toilet and sink en suite; the shower was outdoors. Little Corn is but one square mile, and most of it is jungle. Pedestrians and cyclists use a paved walkway that runs along part of the isle's western side. Getting to the other side, which is all pristine shoreline, requires a hike through the tropical forest. I was game. I went to the Dolphin Dive shop near the pier, where I picked up a hand-drawn map. "Go up to Bridget's place and turn right," I was told by Sandra Herman, the shop's manager, "and you'll see a path that takes you through the jungle to Derek's Place." Bridget? Derek? I walked 50 yards north to an unremarkable house (Bridget's, it turned out) and turned east. Within minutes, I was on a dirt trail, surrounded by ferns, palms trees, butterflies and hanging vines, with coconuts along the path. The trail was quiet, other than the squawking of birds, on my half-hour trek to the eastern side of the island. I turned north when I saw the sea in front of me. Ten minutes later, I stumbled upon Derek's Place. Hello, 1960s. Derek Sharp, 32, staked out his corner of nirvana about eight years ago and set about building four jungle cabins, each different, each splendid, each costing $10 to $40 per night, depending on the number of guests. This Shangri-La, blanketed in a carpet of grass and thick with tall palms, attracts backpackers mostly, but a more varied clientele recently began staying here, Mr. Sharp said. Everyone shares the compound's bathroom. Chickens and roosters – dinner when guests tire of fresh fish – wander around the spread; a worker breaks open coconuts for snacks. Just feet away is an empty white-sand beach. "I like the freedom here," Mr. Sharp said. "If you have an idea, you can make it happen." Others in this corner of the world had the same epiphany. Ten minutes northwest of Derek's Place, past a gorgeous stretch of beach to my right and jungle to my left, I came across a sign directing me to Farm Peace & Love. The proprietors of this outpost, in a large clearing and surrounded by a wild garden, are Paola Carminiani, an Italian expatriate, and her husband, Bing Crosby Downs, an islander. They rent out a guest room attached to their house for $50 for two guests or $60 for three, and a separate guest cottage for $75 nightly. Ms. Carminiani arrived on Little Corn Island 10 years ago, seeking peace and quiet. "I prefer no phones, few people, no noise," she said. She got it. | | The expat runs a patio restaurant out of her house. Three-course dinners cost $12 to $15. Reservations are made by radio from Casa Iguana's dive shop. Ms. Carminiani also offers 90-minute guided horseback rides along the island's northeastern shore for $25. Later in the day, dusk suddenly fell like a cloak. Lacking a flashlight, I needed to get back to my own quarters. Half an hour later, the moon lighting the last part of the hike, I arrived at Casa Iguana in time for dinner. I set off in the morning to experience diving and snorkeling. I accompanied four divers to White Holes, a white coral reef a 10-minute speedboat ride off the northern end of the island. I snorkeled above the others for an hour, awed as nurse sharks lazed along the bottom and barracudas cruised by. "The primitiveness of this place makes the hard work of getting here worth it," said Dennis Bowmen, an avid diver from Austin who knows all the best Central American dive spots and rates Little Corn waters highly. "I'm concerned that someone with a 'vision' will come here, though, and change this place. Best to see it now." I rented a golf cart for three hours and tooled around the island. That's how I discovered Sandra Watts' coco-bread shop across from the airstrip. Locals line up outside her modest bakery at all hours to devour freshly made, sweet-tasting confections that melt your insides. I also climbed 365-foot Mount Pleasant, the highest peak on the island. After a 20-minute walk through dense foliage and past brightly colored houses, I reached the top to behold a breathtaking 360-degree vista of Great Corn's white-sand beaches. The logical activity after that scorching hike was a dip in the island's only infinity pool – its only pool, for that matter – at Casa Canada. Hugging the eastern shoreline, this hotel has 20 ocean-facing casitas, at $85 a night double occupancy. It's the nicest hotel on the island, in my opinion, and the one with the most North American amenities (refrigerator in the room, television set, air conditioning). Its patio restaurant, which faces the sea, serves fresh-fish dinners daily priced from $9 to $16. Diving and fishing are the big deal on Great Corn. The best snorkeling can be reached by foot at Anastasia's on the Sea, on the eastern side of the island. From this hotel, which also rents kayaks and fishing rods and offers sport-fishing trips, snorkelers can walk out 60 feet and explore the reef for $3 an hour. Anastasia's co-owner, Robert Finley, a North Carolina native and fishing aficionado, says the fly-fishing on Great Corn is the best on the planet. "You can troll near shore and get kings, mackerel, barracuda, mahi-mahi, grouper, snapper – I've caught some that are 40 pounds," he said. My best dinner on Great Corn was the grilled barracuda I devoured along with beans and plantains for $8 at Paraiso Club, a hotel near the airstrip. As is typical of the Corns' relaxed atmosphere, tourists from adjoining tables wandered over to my table to toss back some beer and swap stories with Ton Bos, Paraiso's co-owner, and me. "You come to Big Corn, away from the crowds, pull up a lounge chair, and there are two people on the beach, not 4,000 like the rest of Central America," said Richard Hewson, 52, from the province of Saskatchewan, Canada. "You've got your bottle of rum, a Caribbean view. You're in paradise, man." Amen to that. SCUBA FORUMDISCUSS THIS TOPIC - Dive in and have your say at Scuba Forum |
