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Beach front on Big Corn Island

Other wedding links: Sarah & Edgar's Wedding, August 2004 Marc & Amanda's Wedding, April 2004 Our Wedding Website, September 2003 Bullard's Wedding, 04-2001 Baker's Wedding, 05-1999 Return to Main Page

In November 2004 Cecilia, Steve and I traveled to Nicaragua for the wedding of our friends Luis & Claudia from Houston.  We flew to Managua a week before the actual wedding to travel around the country in advance of the big event.  Below is a summary of our relaxing time in the Corn Islands, followed by a visit to Granada and the nearby volcanos, and the actual wedding weekend.  I must declare that Luis & Claudia organized the most exciting and fun wedding event that I have ever attended, with the exception of my own of course :).  It was a weekend that we will always remember.

We spent three nights at a small hotel on the beach called El Paraiso.  The hotel consisted of several clean and well maintained small thatch-roofed huts, and a main dining / relaxing open area open - also with a thatched roof.  There were several women who worked the hotel / restaurant, and they were very friendly.  One important note - there were no mosquito nets in the rooms, and the rooms were not well sealed to the outside.  I highly recommend bringing a mosquito net, as there are none available for purchase on the island - we were only able to find one small store that even sold bug repellent.  Otherwise the hotel was great.

Each morning we went for a run around the circumference of the island, which was about 10km total.  Each afternoon we went to a beach called "Picnic Area Beach", about 1km down the coast from our hotel.  The beach is more than 1km of white sand and was always deserted.  The water and wind are usually calm on this side of the island, and we took advantage of it for swimming and lounging.  The water was perfect temperature.  The beach has one nice restaurant that serves a variety of food - we ate lunch there almost everyday.  This was by far the best beach on the island, as it was away from any major development or residences, and therefore was clean of trash or debris.  There was one other excellent beach on the opposite side of the island, but the surf and wind were too strong for swimming, and it was significantly further away from our hotel (and we liked to walk).  There is also a very small dive resort on this side of the island, run by a nice couple.  We investigated a diving trip, but found that the surf / wind was too strong during all of our visiting days.

The cuisine theme during our time on the Corn Islands was lobster - I ate ten lobster in total!  They were all cheap and excellent quality.  I tried garlic lobster, caribbean lobster, "normal" lobster, etc.  All were good choices.  The first night we ate at a seaside restaurant in the city center, but otherwise we ate at our hotel restaurant since the food was good quality and the setting was relaxing and convenient.  We were the only customers both in the hotel and at their restaurant for all of the nights!  On our last morning a group of a dozen Spanish / American tourists arrived at the hotel, our timing was good to avoid the crowd.

The hotel also kept several pets, including several dogs and cats, tropical birds, and a small monkey tethered to a 10-meter line which allowed it to climb between two trees.  One of the cats was no more than six weeks old, and had been abandoned by its mother.  The monkey, who was female, had adopted the kitten as its own, and spent each day carrying and caressing the kitten.  Despite the sometimes rough handling the kitten did not seem to mind the attention.  What a combination!

There are no real tourist attractions on the island other than Picnic Beach, which suited us just fine.  Our time on the island proved to be the perfect time of relaxation, conversation, and disconnection from the internet, cell phones, television, news, etc.  A few interesting pictures from the island:
 

Hole-digging on the beach	Lobster - the staple of our Corn Islands diet
Monkey & kitten combination	Poor kitten handling technique
After escape from the monkey's control	Flor de Cana, the best rum in the world?

On Thursday morning we headed out to Granada, along with one of Luis' friends named Herman.  The four of us first stopped at the Masaya volcano at the center of Parque Nacional Volcán Masaya, where we hiked up to a nearby hilltop for great views in all directions (and of several other volcanos). The Masaya volcano was actively steaming, and the view down into the crater was very impressive.  We had lunch overlooking an old nearby crater (there was much debate over whether it was actually a crater or just a normal lake), then proceeded to Granada where we checked into a superb colonial hotel called La Francia.  We wandered through the various squares of the city, and coincidentally ran into two Spanish friends from Paris - another couple (Sara and Borja) also visiting Nicaragua for the wedding.  Sara and Borja had already done a two week tour of Guatemala and Honduras, and had many good storied to tell.  We had dinner together in a Mexican steak restaurant, then retired to the hotel for drinks.  We were all pretty tired from the long day, and crashed easily.

On Friday we drove to the Mombacho volcano.  We parked our car at the park entrance, paid the small entrance fee, then took a open-air bus up to the top of the mountain, which appeared to be in permanent cloud forest.  It was a very steep road (almost too steep to walk), and the truck just managed in its highest gear, which made the ride quite exciting.  Once on top we did a one-hour walk around a nature trail, which included a great lookout onto Las Isletas, a group of 356 small islands just offshore in Lago de Nicaragua.  There was one fumarole along the trail, which was not really steaming.  Otherwise we saw a variety of could forest plants and tress.  We returned to the visitor center, had a brief snack, and confirmed with the center expert that the crater/lake where we had lunch the previous day was in fact an old crater.  I was quite pleased to have proved my theory.  Instead of waiting for the truck to descend, which was not for another hour (1pm) we decided to walk down the steep road, which was challenging but fun.  We stopped at a coffee plantation at halfway point of the road, where we tasted the local brews and purchased a few bags of bean to bring back to Paris.  We managed to hitch a ride the rest of the way down in the back of a pickup truck.  We returned to the car and drove the 90 minutes back to Managua.  A few images from the two-day excursion"
 

Lunch next to the controversial crater	Lookout over Las Isletas and Lago de Nicaragua
Masaya crater	Touring Granada

Saturday we woke up late.  A large potion of the wedding group had decided to leave early that morning for the beach, but we decided instead to sleep in and be well rested for the big wedding event that night.  In retrospect, it was a good choice.  We spent the late morning and afternoon hanging out with Luis at the Holiday Inn pool.  Luis appeared a bit nervous, then seemed to calm down.  I was happy that we spent the day with him - it seemed to keep him relaxed.  In the late afternoon we showered, had a late snack in anticipation of a very late dinner, then met the rest of the wedding party to leave for the church.  We took several minibuses to the church, whose location and name I also cannot remember. But I can confirm that the open-air church was gorgeous, and there were an incredible number of flowers (I guess that is one benefit of getting married in the tropics).

We placed bets on how late the wedding ceremony would start - I guessed 90 minutes, but in the end it started only 45 minutes late.  The ceremony was quite long  and the temperature was still quite hot, but there were not faintings or other incidents during the ceremony.  By 9pm we were back in the minivans and on our way to a golf/country club outside the city.  This is where the fun really began....

I have never attended a wedding reception staffed by so many people.  There was a large Mariachi band to greet the guests as they arrived, followed by a traditional Nicaraguan dance performance, followed by a huge troop of crazy dancers - I am not familiar with the origin of their attire or dance, but as they passed out maracas and masks to everyone I knew that we were in store for a good time.  The dancing continued, and so did the drinks.  We focused in particular on the Flor de Cana, which had become a highlight of the trip.  At midnight, after almost three hours of drinking and dancing, dinner was served.  It was just in time, as the majority of the wedding party was well on their way to significant hangovers the following day.  Dinner was excellent, and was followed by more dancing, dessert, cake, and even karaoke.  The party ended just after 4am, with the fathers of the bride and groom singing on the main stage, without any backup music. It was quite entertaining to the remaining guests.  A few images from the evening:
 

The happily married couple	A happy dancing groom
Chaos on the dance floor	Renee in full *costume*

We returned to the hotel, and after a last drink with remaining friends in the room, were asleep by 5am.  After 12 hours of walking, standing, and dancing and sweating in my suit I was happy to be in bed.  And we had to wake up a mere 3-1/2 hours later to catch the first of our connecting flights back to Paris.  I must say that it was well worth the effort and sacrifice to make it to the wedding, and congrats to Luis & Claudia!

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