The Importance of Fiber

By Tom

Little Corn Island, Nicaragua

image of Little Corn from icons.ecast.com

Well, we've finally made it to the Caribbean today. Actually, we've made it to the "idea" of the Caribbean today, the one the gated resorts with heavily armed guards try to emulate but can never quite match. We made it to the real Caribbean on Monday, the one they don't show you on postcards, and we've been trying to escape it ever since we arrived.

Almost all of Nicaragua's population (which isn't many -it's the least populated and largest Central American nation) live in the Western 1/4 of the country along the Pacific coast. The Eastern 3/4 of the country is flat, hot, wet and unpopulated. What few people that do live here mostly speak either "English" (although if you've ever tried to understand Bob Marley, you know this is not the Queen's English), or the indigenous Moskito language (pronounced like the insect). There is hostility here for "those Spaniards" on the Pacific and infrastructure and municipal services are more likely to be provided by the local cocaine traffickers than by the Central Government in Managua.

On Monday night, we pulled into the town of Rama, 50 km from the Atlantic coast where roads from the Pacific side end. It is a gritty river-port town where hotel rooms are patronized by more prostitutes than travelers. We decided to stay off the streets and hunkered down in our hotel for the evening, choosing to eat at the restaurant in the lobby. Our server, who could have been Jamie Foxx's brother, acted like he was auditioning for a job serving at the Four Seasons, even presenting a 75-cent liter of bottled water like it was a fine Merlot. He wore a white collared shirt, a suit vest, and jeans with the outline of giant marijuana plants stitched into them.

The next morning we hung around the sketchy river port waiting for a panga to take us on the 90-minute ride to the coast. We loaded on the 20-person boat around 10 a.m. and headed down the river. The man who sat across from us in the boat wore large rhinestone-studded rings and bracelets with a wide chain necklace that ended in a shimmering dollar bill symbol on his chest. He also wore an army-fatigues hat, a utility vest, combat boots and a large machete strapped to his hip. He looked like a cross between rapper 50-cent and Crocodile Dundee. The river was wide and brown with jungle hanging over on both sides, interrupted only by the occasional brown wooden shacks with a few banana trees out back and naked children running through the front lawn.

A short while into the ride, the already gray day took a turn for the worst and the skies opened upon us. A large black tarp was unfurled over the passengers and we huddled beneath it as it whipped and cracked like gunfire in our ears. Things turned from bad to worse as the thunder grew louder and closer and the flashes of lightening we saw from under the tarp became more frequent. The boat captain slowed the boat and steered us into the thick jungle overhanging the river to get out of the storm. The tree cover felt like little protection as we sat in the only metal object on a flat expanse of jungle and river.

We arrived on the coastal port city of Bluefields happy to be alive. The town is named after the Dutch pirate Blewfeldt who based his crew here 200 years ago and the town still feels like it would be a good place to pick up a crew of men for a journey of plundering and swashbuckling adventure. As we walked the bustling streets to our hotel, reggae music pumped from bars and passing cars.

Later that afternoon as we wandered around Bluefields, we passed a friendly local sitting on his front porch. He gave us a big hello in perfect English and asked if we were going to the Corn Islands on the ferry tomorrow, informing us they he was heading there also. We stopped to chat and he invited us to come sit on his porch with him. He even called down to the dock to reserve us tickets on the ferry the next morning. His name was Joshua and he said he owned a small SCUBA shop on Little Corn Island. He also told us that his father was picking him up in a speed boat at the ferry dock on Big Corn Island to take him to Little Corn and that there were two more spots open if we wanted to join him. We accepted, glad to have run into such a friendly and helpful local.

He suggested we meet up for a drink with another friend of his for a drink, a German traveler named Bernard. We met them at 6 that evening and enjoyed a couple of beers at a locals bar before the power went out and Joshua decided it wasn't safe to be out on the streets in the dark. Before he left, Joshua asked if we would mind chipping in a little for gas for the boat ride in the morning and I gave him 200 Cordoba, roughly $9.50.

The next morning we met up with Joshua and Bernard again at 6:30 to buy ferry tickets. After we got the tickets, we had a couple of hours before the ferry departed so we all went our separate ways to grab a few last minute things in Bluefields. We ran into Joshua again sitting in front of the bank waiting for his cousin. He told me a spot was available for a dive on Friday morning and he asked for only 50 Cordoba ($2.50) to reserve it. I gladly handed it over excited to have a spot on a dive reserved. He said he would see us on the ferry, but as Julia and I walked away our hearts sank. Something about that last interaction didn't seem right. By the time we loaded onto the ferry, we knew we'd lost our money. We saw Bernard and a Frenchman named Marko on the ferry. They had also given Joshua "gas money" to get to Little Corn and we told them they lost their money too. The refused to believe us until the boat departed with no Joshua.

A con man steals much more than your money; he steals your trust and your faith in human decency. If $12 had accidentally slipped out of my pocket, I would have been momentarily annoyed and taken care to stash my money more carefully the next time. But to have willfully handed money over only to be betrayed put me in a horrible mood that even the turquoise waters of the Caribbean and they happy dolphins accompanying the boat could do little to mitigate. Julia was no help, as she considers all ferries to be floating death traps and was overwhelmed with anxiety.

We arrived on Little Corn Island and checked into a small dirty thatched cabana. It was dark because the electricity on the island was out and this place had no generator. At 4 a.m. we awoke to the sound of a brawl on the beach next to us between a dozen drunken islanders and tourists. The sound of the thick Caribbean accent shouting threats as punches were thrown and people pulled apart on our doorstep in the middle of the night was a frightening way to start our time on the island. After 90-minutes, things fizzled out and only two men remained arguing outside. When Julia could no longer take it any more, she leapt to the window and unleashed a fury of obscenities at the men at a volume I didn't know she was capable of. As I lay in bed waiting for the men to break the door down to come after us, I pondered how I could convince them that I didn't know this crazed woman when we were sharing a room. They thought better of messing with someone so clearly at the end of her rope and went away.

The next morning we checked out of that establishment after giving the owner a piece of our minds about security, hoping to end our streak of bad luck behind us. As I lay on the bed that afternoon doubled over with painful cramps, it was clear that our troubles were not over.

If you'll recall, the parasites I'd picked up on my travels required a cocktail of drugs to stop my near-constant diarrhea. Unfortunately, the drugs seemed to have also stopped all bowel movement entirely for over a week now. The past few days (to paraphrase David Sadaris) my daily meals had become an exercise akin to packing a musket. And now it was coming to a head as the 9 days worth of food packed into me felt like someone was inflating a football inside my abdomen. While Julia went to check to see if there was clinic on the island, I alternated between fits of violent vomiting and painful cramps. I was ready to seek a priest who would shout "The power of Christ compels thee to come out!" as he sprinkled holy water on my butt, but Julia suggest we go see the doctor instead.

I staggered onto the lawn of the clinic and threw up again just to show them I meant business. We walked into the office and the doctor was sitting in the kitchen eating an empanada. He showed me to a bed and gave me a checkup. I'll spare you the gory details, but one injection, a pill, an enema and several hours later, I walked out of the clinic a new man. In between, there was a lot of time doubled over with horribly painful cramps (during which the doctor stepped out to the kitchen to fry himself some fish), several runs to the toilet that had to be flushed with a bucket, and a whole lot of sweating. I started the afternoon in so much pain I wasn't sure I would make it, but by the end of the evening, I was rid of all 27 meals.

And so finally this morning, we found a beautiful hilltop lodge on the east side of the island where we have our own private cabin for $20 a night. There are hammocks and palm trees hanging over a white sand beach with turquoise waters. What there are (hopefully) not are prostitutes, con artists, lightening strikes, brawling islanders, pirates, and nearly-sinking ferries. They make their own electricity using solar power so the lights are never out and the security looks impeccable. There was even a one-day old New York Times in the restaurant this morning! We plan to spend our week here recovering from our week of getting here. And of course, making sure we're getting plenty of fiber.