Nicaragua Corn Islands

Overview

The Corn Islands represent a little bit of mellow Caribbean culture 70km off Nicaragua’s east coast. The two islands are classic barefoot paradises, with sugary beaches shaded by brigades of waving coconut palms.  It’s the simple life here; local people, English-speaking Afro-Caribbean, are pretty well cut off from the rest of the country, although nowadays there are more incomers setting up home here. You get the feeling this is how the whole the Caribbean region was like in the 1950s: there are no high rise buildings, shopping malls, or glitzy resort hotels. Beaches and roads, studded with open-air family-run fish restaurants, are almost empty and the people relaxed with no tourist-related hassling. The unpolluted undersea world around the rocky sea shore is, as to be expected, a theatre of colour and movement, and some of the region’s best snorkelling and diving is possible in the clear warm waters.