When you're travelling for only 2 or 3 months, spending 2 and a half weeks in the one location is not usually as high on the priority list as getting around and seeing lots of new places. Less so even, when the place happens to be an island, more than 6 hours from the mainland that is roughly the size of Brisbane's CBD, minus the fantastic shopping and funky bars (ha!). However, after tiring of seeing the same kind of thing in the same kind of places (let's be honest, a waterfall is always just a waterfall, and colonial cities and pretty bodies of water are hardly unique to anywhere in the world), it was time to take a break from travelling and spread my backpack across the floor for more than a few days.
Don't let the size and remoteness fool you however, Little Corn Island is full of many fun activities to partake in such as diving, walking around, talking to people, eating... Hang on now, this is starting to sound a little like San Pedro la Laguna in Guatemala isn't it? (well my experience there anyway, some keen beans were hiking volcanoes and studying spanish every day). For my first week on the island I was diving every day, doing my course and being active and adventurous. But then, after the money tree grew sparser and my ears and brain began flooding with water laziness struck. Daily routines had turned into reading in the hammock, drinking coffee at either Tranquilo, Casa Iguana or the Italian place and being peer pressured (lol) into accepting a puff (or 10) of the many many joints that were being passed around the table.
Another contributing factor to staying so long was the fantastic group of people I found. By default (and luck) I found myself in a hostel where all of the solo, interesting and long term travellers were hanging out. Of course by long term I mean 1-2 + weeks, after all it still is only a small island with little to do. But the fascinating thing was that most of the travellers around were experienced and cool travellers, many of whom were travel fatigued (like me) and wanted a holiday from their holiday. Oh the self indulgence of travelling. Amongst that group that spent every day together there were compulsive tanners, who lathered themselves up in oil daily for long sun sessions, while it seems that, despite being sunny almost every day I was there, that I left the island much whiter than I did when I arrived. There were divers, drinkers, white lobster enthusiasts, stoners (there were a LOT of those) and a blogger even more narcissistic than myself! Every few days the odd travelling family passed through, and although travelling can only be good for a child's personal development, being exposed to a bunch of lobster-red adults cursing and passing around a blunt is something that 9 year olds don't need to see (although I won't criticise their parenting skills... what? oops!). Little Corn Island (not unlike all of the Caribbean) has it's sex tourists as well, although foreign women seem to be the most enthusiastic when it comes to getting in on with a strapping black man. Of course these men know it too and will latch on in a latino-caribbean way (which is the worst kind of way) to any girl that might say hello. There was even one girl (with a beard! LOL!) who managed to sink her claws into some fresh meat, fell in love (double lol) and is planning to stay on the island for a few months to do her Divemaster course (suuure...). But the most fascinating of all of the creatures that passed through the island was the mentally derranged Texan. There was no denying that old mate exuded a vibe so creepy that the entire hostel was ill at ease with his presence (even the 7ft tall, 150kg owner Randy), but his ranting, foul mood and apparent lack of social skills had him pegged as a potential slasher. Eventually after much bitching, the consensus (even amongst the owners) was to kick him out and hopefully never see him again.
In between beach and coffee sessions, the nightly smoke up and amazing reading sessions thanks to a well stocked lending library on the island, the locals provided much amusement, with their broken-I-don't-know-if-I-could-even-call-it-that english and reggae music so terrible that it could have only come from the Nicaraguan Caribbean. So after 2.5 weeks of wonderful new friends, not a single sunburn and utter self indulgence, 2 days of travelling and a couple of hours in LA's most white trash hostel (hey! it was the closest to the airport), it has come time for shopping, Hollywood and Long Beach before returning to my humble abode in Brisbane. Err, except that I don't actually have any kind of abode in Brisbane... oh shit.
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