Little Corn Island

This tiny little island set out in the Caribbean Sea is absolutely breathtaking in its beauty. It is 1.5 square kilometers and fringed by white sandy beaches with coconut palms providing some shade. The water is perfectly clear and turquoise and on a nice day is calm and peaceful. The middle of the island is mostly thick jungle with some swamp land. There are no roads, no cars but just a footpath for one stretch and dirt trails to find your way around the rest of the island.

Apparently people have only lived here for 50 years or so, before that it was used as farm land for some of the people on Big Corn. Mangoes, bananas and coconuts grow everywhere. Yesterday on my walk around the island I bagged some nice looking mangoes straight off the ground under the tree. A few days ago a guy sold us a beautiful and perfectly ripe pineapple for about a dollar – he probably picked it from someone else’s land. There are always kids running around selling banana bread and various other things. I usually try to buy from them to try to keep them honest – even if I’m not hungry.

A mix of Spanish and English is spoken here, depending on who you speak to. The dark skinned locals are more likely to speak English although in that hard-to-understand Caribbean accent – yeah mon! The more Hispanic people speak mostly Spanish. I have a better time with my Spanish here. According to the guidebook the population is just over 500 – and most of that is centred in Caribe Town, the pueblo on the northwestern side of the island, just past the dock.

The main (legal) industry of both Corn Islands is lobster fishing. Tourism has been taking off for the last several years but it is mostly gringos coming in to take advantage of those opportunities. Apparently things have been relatively slow for the past couple of years due to the global slowdown but it is not disastrous here. I suppose it is one of the more affordable Caribbean holidays – rustic though it is.

I can see how people get stuck here for months on end. Right now is rainy season and we are supposed to get rain every day. We arrived last Monday and before that it had been raining for nine straight days. We got here and the weather was perfect, every day. There was one day that was slightly overcast for a little while and rained for about an hour. There was also the odd night rain and one night we got a fierce storm on the other side of the island with lashing wind and rain. That lasted two hours. Otherwise perfect. Apparently we lucked out due to a nearby tropical storm that sucked all the bad weather away from here.

I was trying to base the length of my stay on the weather but if it keeps going like this I may never leave. I think I might get my name on the flight for Sunday morning. The holiday from travelling has to end at some point…