Well, I made it safely back to Chicago! I had enough time to say see my brother and his wife, my parents, and a couple of friends, but the timing was a little weird, as COVID fears were increasing. People were starting to wear masks and the hand sanitizer was quickly being emptied from the shelves. Should I be seeing anyone at all because I had just been traveling - even if it was from a country with very few cases? It was a bit awkward.
So by now the Cambodia plans were definitely in the trashcan. It was now mid-march and Italy was getting ravaged by Covid, cases were everywhere, and it certainly looked like a lock-down would happen in sometime in the near future. Of course I had no place of my own, and if we went into lockdown, I’d most likely be stuck at my parents place, which is not something I really wanted. So where would I want to get locked down? Preferably someplace warm and tropical. Someplace a bit detached from most of civilization. An island perhaps. Somewhere quiet.
I remember a travel buddy telling me that he really liked an island called Little Corn Island when he was traveling in Central America. Super chill spot, no cars, not very built up for tourists, beautiful beaches, and away from it all! This sounded like an excellent option. It was off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, most people fly there from the capital city Managua. That gets you to Big Corn Island, and then it’s a 30 minute boat ride to Little Corn. Honestly this sounded perfect. I didn’t have much time, the covid cases were still pretty minimal in Chicagoland, but the writing was on the wall. I booked a flight for March 15, Spirit Airlines to Managua, 77 dollars! Then a flight to Big Corn.
The escape plan
The airport was a bit hectic, masks were required by now, some people were donning full face masks made of plastic. I had my bottle of hand sanitizer and tried my best to not touch anything I didn’t have to, as nobody really know how much it spread from droplets at this point. Fortunately the flight was only 1/3 of the way full. Once in Managua they took our temperatures and asked about symptoms, but nothing else. Upon landing on Big Corn they were more concerned about drugs than the virus, as dogs sniffed everyone’s luggage. From the airport it was a short taxi ride to boat launch, where I learned that there is an MLB player from Corn Island, pretty cool! We had to wait an hour and then we loaded up the panga (as the boat is called) and it was a slightly bumping 30 minutes to Little Corn Island. From the pier there was a small crowd waiting, hoping to get you to stay at their guesthouse.
I had already booked a bungalow, a little bit away from the main beach, up near the lighthouse. There seemed to be no fears about the virus on Little Corn, there were plenty of tourists around, certainly no masks, and it looked like life as usual. And I was in luck, the place I was staying was having their weekly Taco Tuesday. I was planning on limiting my exposure after traveling, but I did have to eat afterall. The general mood was pretty light, everyone was talking about covid, but it also seemed like a faraway problem from the small island. Nobody was altering their travel plans or anything. And I didn’t go to the bars, but I did take a walk down that way in the evening, and they were hopping!
the bar/restaurant at the lighthouse
Doing some walking around the island the next day, I found a few sets of beach bungalows around the island. The nicest beach was on the far north part of the island, maybe 30 minutes walking from town (remember theres no cars, no scooters) which was also where the only resort on the island was. But not far away from that was a set of bungalows, set off in the woods a bit, that shared that same, beautiful beach. This was where I would relocate to. The bungalows weren’t of the nicest craftmanship, but they were cheap, away from town, and there was nobody staying there at the moment! A day later I was settled in to my new home. Basically just a room with bed, mosquito net, a dresser, chair, some shelves, and the bathroom. Plus a hammock out front! What else do I need?
Red circle is where I stayed. Purple is the main part of town
It didn’t long for things to start changing very fast in Little Corn Island. The speed of exponential virus spread is frightening! At first my section of beach was still crowded with people, snorkel trips were running, etc. But soon countries began announcing that they would be closing to visitors and urging citizens to come home, NOW, before it’s too late. After a few more days it became a pretty stressful time, as lots of people were now scrambling to book (expensive) flights home, and the Nicaragua to Europe connection isn’t the most straightforward. I felt especially bad for the ones who were traveling long term and had just started their trips, dashing some big, grand travel plans. But there weren’t many options, it was either hunker down in Nicaragua, or whatever other country you could possibly get to, or go home. And for the vast majority of reasonable people, home was certainly the best option.
Everything was still kind of up in the air over the severity of this thing, there was certainly plenty of doomsday speculations: the food runs out, the banking systems collapses, the world goes to anarchy, etc. Or it’s just the flu, being blown way out of proportion by the media! So staying on a small island certainly carried some risk, if the food stores got low, and island would be the first place to run out… But I wasn’t overly worried, and had already decided that I would stick it out on Little Corn, for better or worse.
So now, a week after arriving, all the bars and restaurants had shut down, not long after lockdown took effect in Illinois. Although it was community imposed lockdown, not governmental. Next was the school, and then the only things open were the small grocery shops – and the church. It’s a small but very lively church, and no virus was going to stop a devoted islander from Sunday worship! The speed at which the tourists cleared out was almost impressive.
The palm trees reach all the way up to the water
Everything was very quiet up at my end of the island. The nice resort was still low-key open (which was nice because I liked going there to use the wifi, the bar/restaurant area is gorgeous). Besides the resort there were two or three local homes that had been built on the beach a while ago, a little beach restaurant (closed), a shack with snorkel gear to rent (closed) and that was all! Lots of palm trees! It’s too bad my place wasn’t right on the beach, but it was just a minute walk through the bush. It was a big cleared out area with 5 very basic bungalows, a communal kitchen, dining area, fire pit, laundry station, and the big house which was normally inhabited by a Canadian guy who lived with his Nica wife and family. It was him that built all the bungalows. Although when I got there the owners weren’t there and it was run by the wife’s brother and his girlfriend, who were not in the business of hospitality, ha. It’s not a good sign when your host is asking you to borrow money for cell phone data just a few days in! The wifi was also, but at least I had bought a Nicaraguan SIM card, and that worked fine on my phone.
living in nature! Coconuts, flowers, aaaand bugs
It only took a week and half since I had arrived for the island to be totally cleared out, with the exception of a few other stragglers. I could walk out to my section of beach, which is the nicest beach on the whole island and have it all to myself. Maaaaybe there would be a few other people hanging around, but for the most part it was just me. It was pretty surreal. An empty, gorgeous, secluded beach! I had chosen well! Eventually I would wish for a place with perhaps a few other things to do, and more food options, but at this moment in time, it was perfect! I had my 1100 page monster book that I had been wanting to read and putting off, so now was the time! I also had my Spanish audio lessons loaded onto my phone, and some guided meditation stuff, so I was ready for beach seclusion.
Not bad huh?
My daily routine was something like: make coffee + eggs or pancakes, do some Spanish lessons, head down to the beach for a couple hours or reading/sunbathing/swimming/audio lessons, make a late lunch of maybe fruit and a sandwich. Back to the beach in evening for a light workout, catch the sunset, some meditation, and then back to the bungalow. Then doomscroll on my phone for all the new covid related news, make dinner, play poker on my phone app, if I had time watch TV/movie I had previously downloaded on my computer, and then bed! Although the sleep from 6am to whenever I woke up was not always the most comfortable with no electricity, but I managed! Certainly much better than being in the States!