!Y PROSPERO ANO NUEVO!

Well, we left the 26th of december to embark on our last vacation before the end of our service.. and probably the last vacation for a few years. Dont worry, we were NOT big spenders, we spent less than $20 a day on food and all fun items. Our hotels costed between $15-25 for the both of us except the last night we splurged on a place with a mirror, it was a nice place for $50. Ok, now that my financial justification is complete, I want to say that it was a great adventure. When we first found out we were going to nicaragua, I put a picture of Big Corn Island up on the blog to represent Nicaragua. (Feel free to flip back.. its kind of cute.) But we finally got clearance from the embassy to be able to go there. Its two little islands in the Carribean, that are serviced by La Costena air. A tiny airline. Here are our boarding passes. And here is our tiny little one-prop plane. We unexpectadly got the best seats.. of all the 12. We sat right behind the pilot so we could see everything. I thought about my sister the whole time, knowing how much she would have enjoyed it.

Here is the first sight of the island from the captains windsheild as we decended. We later sat on that dock (the little one on the left, watching the planes land. See below.)

At first it was hard to find a clean beach.. being Nicaragua and all. We walked around the entire island the first night. The next day we found this pristine beach where we layed on the dock all day.

We had always wanted to get scuba certified, and we had heard that it was really cheep there, but we didn't have it in our plans until a guy at our hostal said he just finished and that it was pretty easy. So we decided to give it a go. We did a discovery course, wherein if you liked it, you could go on for the next two days and finish the course. The first time I went down, I couldnt equalize the pressure in my ears and it hurt like the devil. I ended up not being able to decend all the way. I was frustrated and almost quit. But kory had the time of his life in those 45 minutes while he waited for me to decend with the instructor, so he convinced me to try again. I figured out eventually that I was doing it wrong. The next day when we went out, I went right down, 10 meters with no problems. It was great! The first thing we saw when we got down there was a giant brain coral.

Here is kory watching the video and studying for the test.

This is us with two other peoples in our class and our instructor Julian. A hilarious french guy who made everything lots of fun. Once when we were down, we started kung foo fighting, but it was like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon style because we were flying through the "air". I think Kory is going to be seriously addicted. I liked it too, but got pretty nauseous on the boat. Im super glad we did it though. It made this trip salvaje!

Next we took a boat out to little corn island, 45 minutes of terrifying and drenching adventure. I really thought we were going to be turned over in the waves. We cought air several times and I was dripping wet. On the way home it stared to rain and we held a black plastic cover over us to keep "dry". It was quite crazy. anyway, here is a sandy christmas tree we made to bring in the new year. I know I look terrible, but I was without a mirror for the whole week and in and out of the ocean was unbecoming of me.

That night, on an island so small that there were no motorized vehicles, only wheelbarrows, we became part of a huge party with people from all over the world. Kory was quite social and built a huge bonfire with a guy from South Africa. We tightrope walked and ate a coconut and even danced!

The next day we set to building sand sculptures. This is a very nice sea monster out of a bamboo root. Kory also started making these sand balls and placing them all over. We spent a good few hours doing this. It was very relaxing.

This is our little bamboo hut hotel on the beach of Little Corn.

We found lots of sea treasures and lugged them all home. Here is a nice sea sponge. Below is a pile of conch shells. They were like garbage littering both islands. We brought one of those home too. I dont know if it will make it back to the states, but I hope so.

We slept A LOT during this vacation. MMMMMMM...

The last night when we came back to Big Corn, we stayed in a nicer hotel owned by some Italian people. They were very nice. They told us how the great great great grandson of captain morgan (a notorios pirate, in case you didn't know, who frequented these islands) was the owner of the big house we had seen. They said he was very piraty, which means he probably deals, not in gold, but gold "dust" if you will. They said that there are lots of drug busts, but the dealers just dump the cocaine into the sea (because it is cheap in Cuba). It is usually well packed and floats so when the sea is very choppy and its windy, people often find big packs of drugs. That is why lots of people on the island have nice houses. They find drugs! anyway, it was a good bit of story to go along with the island.

(This is not a pictuer of the great great great grandson of captain Morgan). Well, we are eager to get back to work on our projects and feel sufficiently refreshed enough to do so. So keep updated about the progress, especially those who donated.