Vacation details

Kevin and I went on a no-kids vacation to Central America. It was amazing, of course.
We went first to Nicaragua's paradisical islands- the Corn Islands. There we stayed in a hut and spent many hours in our porch hammocks. One day we took a water taxi to tiny Little Corn Island. We found a little beach and swam for 30 minutes out to a coral reef to snorkel around a large school of blue fish before finning back. That was a long time breathing through a tube for me. Of course, Kevin was fine. The next day Kevin convinced me to scuba dive and it was totally fun. It was easier than snorkeling because I wasn't as scared of beaching myself on the coral. We swam right over a large sting ray and by lots of cool fish.
The Corn Islands are touted as "untouched," which is apparently means untouched by huge American-style resorts or hotels. Our resort/hotel/collection of huts was one of the biggest on the island and had 10 huts total. But the islands were definitely "touched" by humans. Being a "Third World" country, Nicaragua and big Corn Island have yet to figure out how to properly dispose of trash. After you overlook the plastic bottles floating in an otherwise beautiful lagoon off of the main thoroughfare, the rest of the island is idyllic. Kevin and I walked along the less-inhabited north side of the island and I couldn't believe the variety of fruit trees I saw along the road- plantain, banana, kiwi, mango, coconut, "breadfruit" (they cut this up and fried it- I thought it was potato for sure), avocado, fig, starfruit, etc. David, our Israeli dive master told us that there are so many coconuts that no one claims possession over the trees and that if he is ever thirsty he just grabs a green coconut, chops it open and drinks the milk. I was a little chicken to snatch a coconut off of a tree, even though there are tons littering the ground.
We ate a lot of seafood on the island. I had my first taste of lobster and conch. We also had several dishes with red snapper, which is apparently a common fish in the waters around the island. One of the restaurants had two water pens underneath their dining balcony that contained lots of native sea life, including barracuda, starfish, nurse sharks, a sea turtle and some big crabs.
We took a local airplane back to the capital and from there, shared a taxi to Granada with some expats currently living in Costa Rica. They decided to stay at the Colonial Hotel and it was gorgeous, so we stayed too. Granada is a European-like city with walled streets enclosing beautiful, lush courtyards with pools and tropical plants. There were a few beautiful churches with big park-like squares. We went to the "market" in Masaya and I was sad to find a bunch of tourist kitsch. There aren't that many tourists in Nicaragua, but apparently they all go to this market. Kevin asked a kid selling us gum where the "other" market was. He retrieved his big brother, who put down his shoe-shining bench-kit, and ran us over to the artisan's market that the locals shop at. It was a crazy maze of overloaded vendors' booths with both artisan craftwork and everyday things, like Nike knockoffs. We picked up a few things- Kevin got a Guayebera shirt that makes him look like a 50 year-old Central American man, and picked up a matching shirt for Caleb too. Kevin paid our "guide" handsomely (it wasn't much, but it was fortune to him) and he trotted off with a huge smile on his face. We arranged for a canopy tour in the national park (a rainforest) and a kayak tour of Lake Nicaragua with a local guy that our expat friends introduced us to, but we couldn't go because of rain. To fill the day, we each got massages in a courtyard, listening to the slow trickle of rain. Kevin stopped in at a local barbershop and got a $1.50 haircut. The last night we stayed in the capital, Managua. We took a taxi tour of the presidential palace (where Daniel Ortega works) and saw hundreds of people setting up stages and concessions for the 29th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution that took place the day we flew out of Managua. Tens of thousands of people were there to celebrate, including Ortega and Che Guevera's widow. Our taxi driver noted as we passed a large group of people waving party flags and chanting something that we did not want to be around to see the fiesta the following day. That was an interesting piece of culture, and one I was content to witness from behind the dingy windows of an old taxi.
Marie asked if I would recommend Nicaragua. To you, Marie, yes. To everyone else- only if you are okay with not having 4 star options everywhere one looks. Oh and, if you have a weak stomach, bring some Immodium. There were a bunch of mission trip groups on the airplanes in and out of Managua. I heard some high school girls in the Atlanta airport exclaim with excitement about being able to flush paper down the toilet. Central America is not for everyone, but the New York Times calls Nicaragua "staggeringly beautiful" and I agree.