Asked the taxi driver, astonished. This is after my attempts to ask "can you take me to the airport please?" failed comically with the last 5 taxis! Apparantly mainland Nicaragua isn't so touristy that English has filtered down to the majority.
I may not have sampled much of the language in my week in Nicaragua but as you can bet I managed to sample a fair bit of the food! My culinary highlights include fried plantain, barracuda, breadfruit and freshly baked coconut bread 😊🍴
In addition to my lack of Spanish, I also shocked most people with my ratio of travel time to holiday time - 16 hour journey for a one week holiday! Add on two stop overs in the concrete jungle of Managua (the least visitor friendly capital city in Central America...), an extra hour and a half flight and 30 minute panga ride and it was a beast of a journey..
But once you reach the chilled out paradise which is Little Corn Island, it all becomes obvious why you made the trip. A week of hammocks, beer, beaches, rum, sun, coffee and snorkelling was a beautiful break from reality 😊
We stayed at the three brothers hostel, on the livelier west coast of the island - it was basic and had the worst stocked kitchen possible, but was a great spot and perfect for what we needed :) we scrambled around the south coast of the island and consistently got lost on every walk and stroll we embarked on, despite the island being small enough to walk around in less than an hour. But hey, where's the fun in staying on the path?!
I got through a lot of firsts in my week trip...first time in Central America, doing (speedy!) stop overs, snorkelling and seeing sharks(!).
I also tried loads of new food, no great surprise! - including two new fruits (my ambition is to try every fruit there is!) - plantain and breadfruit. Plantain is best served fried, and works well both sweet (with sugar) and savoury (with salt). Breadfruit was reminiscent of sweet potato wedges, but apparantly you can wait for the fruit to ripen further and squeeze out all of the sweet flesh....sounds pretty mushy to me but is meant to taste great! I did decline the Noni fruit however, one whiff was enough to bring back memories of durian and put me off!
The classic Central American dish of Gallo pinto (dry rice and beans), as well as the coconut rice and juicy beans dish, was also delicious - which is good as there's almost no escaping rice as its served for breakfast lunch and dinner!
Just in case I wasn't full enough on carbs already...there's a little bakery near the North of the island where a shy and beautiful women baked bread every day. In just a week I managed to sample almost all of her offerings: coconut bread (my absolute favourite, which I ate every day!), banana bread, ginger bread, cinnamon buns and cheese patties. Well worth a visit. Or several.
Before I finish my rambles I have to mention the fish. The fish so good even my vegetarian best friend succumbed and relished it! Trigger fish, king fish, barracuda and crayfish tails (which they call lobster) are just a few on offer. We are whole fish (beautiful if you can be bothered to pick out the bones) and fillets in curry, garlic or mushroom sauce.
If you ever make the trip I recommend the lighthouse, tranquilios, Rosas and a tiny little house on the way to north beach...but I am pretty sure almost everywhere serves amazing food!
Stock up on beer, rum and coconut bread and head to the north beach. Have fun in paradise, Oh! and send me a postcard.
C xx
