There are 2 ways to get to The Corn Islands off the east coast of Nicaragua. The first one is a 6hr bus, then a 4 hr boat then another 4 hr ferry. The second is fly, from Managua, which takes just over an hour. The second is obviously twice as much as the first, and as we are counting our pennies, so we swayed with that option but in the end we decided to fly and never looked back! The islands, consist of a big one and a little one, we decided on the little one, which is lower key and geared for chillin. The locals speak Creole, like in Belize, very hard to understand and pretty funny to listen to. They just drop letters and blend some together. It's a bit of lazy language I think, not quite English and not quite their own.

Our first few nights were in Casa Iguana, our room was a cabana, or hut, perched above the sea, with no fan but a strong sea breeze. It was $35 which is very expensive by Nica standards but the balcony and hammocks made it all worth it. The general activities are bonfires on the beach and checking out the different restaurants. The standard is pretty low and the prices high but we did find a bar where the locals go and got some beers at local price ($1.50). There's quite a bit of foreign investment, especially the States so some of the shack restaurants may be getting changed into something a little more Western in the next few years.

The highlight here, apart from the beaches in the north, would be the snorkeling and the diving. We went for a dive to see the Hammerhead Sharks and we weren't disappointed. We saw 2 different sharks, which came close enough to investigate us and surprisingly we weren't too nervous we just enjoyed these cool animals.

We got a local to take us to the "Whitehole", and we saw Sting Rays, Barracuda, Nurse Sharks, 3 massive Eagle Rays, Lobster, and a cool Sand Fish. The guide just swam around like crazy and pointed to all the cool stuff. Great fun.

After the flight back to Managua, we stayed the night and then got a Tica bus, 9hrs to San Jose and then onto Puerto Viejo in the south of Costa Rica, on the Caribbean.

Puerto Viejo had mixed reports from people we met, so we didn't hold out much hope for it. But in the end it was a pretty cool, lively place. It got off to a terrible start, as we had a miner mishap on the way there. Our bus stopped in a café at the halfway mark and I had left Kim's bag on a chair in the café! So with my fluent Spanglish I spoke to the bus driver and he phoned the café and said it would be sent with the next bus. But, that he held no responsibility for it, and it might be lost. So, we waited at the bus stop for 3hrs and prayed that Kim's bag, with her passport would make it! We had nearly given up hope, when we saw some people with rucksacks and Kim ran round the corner to see the bus begining to leave. Fortunately the driver saw her and Kim and passport were together again! That was our closest shave.

The next day was spent cycling along the coast to Manzanillo Beach (13km), stopping at various beaches along the way. Puerto Viejo has a lot of investment from the States and overseas pouring in, so all along the road there are various Eco-lodges, restaurants, yoga retreats and bars. It's obviously good and bad, with forests getting destroyed for construction and money being brought into the country for the people. We did find an amazing pizzeria, nade by a real Italian, right infront of you! Fantastico.

The initial draw to this place is the surf, which was a little out of our league, so we simply watched the locals rip it up.