I have never had as hard a time finding something to like in a place as I did in Managua, and I have rarely ever been inspired to create by a place than I was on Corn Island.
That I should feel both extremes in the same day, in the same country is a good reason why judging people as a nation is not a good idea.
Admittedly, we had not made big plans for our brief time in Managua, being the capital of the country we figured it would have fairly standard things to offer and that we could figure out what to do pretty easily once we arrived.
We had a few locations that seemed might be interesting based on our guidebooks and what reception a our hotel had told us and we called a taxi to take us to the first one which was a lookout hill. The second was an archaeological sight with 6000 year old footprints, the third the monumental hill area with an old ruin of a church. The fourth we went to the best market in town.
After an hour and 45 minutes, $30 in taxi fees (didn't negotiate as early as we should have, oops) we had seen everything there was to see in Managua, and still had an hour before having to leave to catch our flight to Corn Island.
We had also seen a lot of the actual city itself and it made us all a little sad. We knew now why no one had been around the night before. Large modern buildings we thought we had spotted on our ride in turned out to only be large bank buildings, rich hotels and government buildings. The rest were run down concrete houses, or shanties made out of metal, cardboard and plastic bags. One such community, the larges in fact we saw was directly across the shinny modern yellow brick legislative building.
It was big business, and poverty, with no in between. And everywhere there were large pink posters and other propaganda for the newly elected president. The trees and lamp posts had the black and red banner of the FSLN painted on them. At various traffic circles in the city there were people standing with love is stronger than hate signs and flags, but they looks less than interested in whatever their purpose was.
Shopkeepers and our taxi driver were no different, crossing the line form insistent to rude and acting extremely wary of locals and foreigners alike. The war had ended over 10 years ago, and yet it seemed nothing had been fixed, and I know I am basing this on very little time there, but it didn't seem like anyone had the motivation to try and change things here anymore. It was a start difference from the happy bustle of Masaya or the pride of Granada. And this was the capital.
This description in no way can give a sense of what it was like to be there and how much the city makes you want to leave as quickly as possible. I felt extremely guilty for wanting to leave, because of the field I work in and because poverty issues are one of my main interests, but I was worried that much longer and the greyness and filth and despair of the city would weigh me down as well. Especially since we weren't in a position to help much.
Isle the Maiz, was the exact opposite. Unlike the rest of Nicaragua, which had been colonized by the Spanish, both corn islands were deemed too dangerously located and not having any natural resources of interest to be of much use to the colonists.
English pirates, viewed things differently and ended up settling down into the place. And the island looks like a perfect setting, with rocks and cliffs and sandy beaches, as well as an amazing north wind that constantly blows setting the palms swaying and keeping the a perfect warm temperature without being stifling.
Our hotel, La Princesa del Isle, was actually the stone foundation of a former hotel that had been ruined in a hurricane that hit the island in the 1990s. It added character to the place, as did Alesandro the Italian gentleman who ran the place with his wife. He ran the hotel with the elegance that would befit Italy, but did it wearing brightly coloured shorts and t-shirts that did not match, and had a relaxed chummy air with his quests. More like he was inviting them into his house rather than his hotel, which I guess since he lived on the same property could be said to be true.
After depositing our bags in our rooms we left to go hunt down somewhere to eat, and as such found ourselves on the road to Brig’s Bay, the only ‘town’ on the island, which was a 25 minute walk along deserted beach from our hotel. On the way we were treated to our first island sunset, a spectacular display of roses and violets that went to the horizon and then continued into the waves.
In Brig’s Bay, we came to realize two things, first that there were people out and about at night on this small island than there were in Managua. And secondly, English was definitely the preferred language here, although all residents spoke flawless Spanish as well. Actually, funny story. Mari actually spent a year in England studying English and so has a decent understanding of the language, and her Spanish, needless to say, is fluent. So it was with horror that she regarded me when we got in the cab at the airport and our driver spoke with one of the airport workers in Caribbean English and said, ‘I don’t understand a word they are saying.’ I couldn’t help laughing. But I understood and explained that it was because of the dialect and that she shouldn’t worry, I would translate if needed. Hiro was nodding in agreement.
We got our second experience of the Island dialect at our restaurant that nice. We had ordered lobster ceviche as an appetizer, oh so good, and oh so much more affordable than in Canada, when a wily old gentleman started playing and singing a song at the table next to us. It was a bawdy type song about how he met his wife, and seemed to fit perfectly with the feel of the island and the boats bobbing up and down at the dock in front of us.
So went our introduction to Corn Island. Maybe the next day we would go hunting for buried treasure.
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