Little Corn Island, Nicaragua – When Time Stands Still
It feels like being transported to another world, where time means nothing – because time stands still here. It’s after sunset. Keli and I are sitting on red plastic chairs under a canopy dimly lit by a single compact florescent bulb. The Caribbean Sea is twenty feet away, and our hut is ten. Nothing is happening here, except for the two women who own the place playing with a girl whose laugh reminds me so much of Zoë. They are speaking Mesquite, a language that runs off their tongues non-stop, as if it had no concept of punctuation. They’re neither pale, nor dark. With Asian-thin eyes, and full lips. I imagine them being the result of a bunch of races swirled together in a magic cauldron – representative of all, and of none.
I notice that the only other sound I hear is the backdrop of waves crashing gently. Like the waves, the women also seem like they have been here forever. There’s an ease and familiarity about the way they move, the way they are. As if their presence here is every bit as natural and integral to this island as the sea waves are.
It took us three days of travel to get here. A seven-hour bus ride from the capital, Managua, a three-hour speed boat ride through the length of the river, a six-hour stomach-turning ferry ride through the wild turbulent waters of the Caribbean Sea, then finally a half-hour speed boat ride from Big Corn Island to this: Little Corn Island.
Our dinner arrives. Spicy grilled whole fish, and gallo pinto (rice and beans) with coconut. I recall the earlier part of our day. Keli and I went diving for the first time today. Yet another world, entirely out of the realm of our daily experiences. Time has no meaning there either, and for similar reasons. This underwater world carries on without us just fine. Our limited 53-minute intrusion didn’t cause so much as a ripple. The fish completely ignored us – nurse sharks and all. Yet the impact that this new world had on us was immeasurable. The beauty, the fluidity, the endless variety of glowing coral reefs and brightly colored tropical fish left us breathless. There is truly no experience on par with traveling to an alien world for the first time – and this sure was one.
It’s 9pm. Dinner is now over, and it’s time for the light to go out. Generators are expensive to run, and electricity is a three-hour-a-day luxury on this still-undeveloped island. The women go to bed, and I feel like I’m the only one on an uninhabited island as I write in my journal by my dim flashlight. This time I’m in a hammock, under a coconut tree, five feet from the sea.