Feelin Irie on the Corn Islands

A few general thoughts....

This place is not at all setup for tourism. The woman who's renting me my huge room had n't rented it out in a year. She doesn't advertise, and the guys who told me about her themselves had to essnetially go door-to-door to find out about the place.

I can't for the life of me get anyone to sell me coconuts or bannanas. There are coconut palm trees everywhere, and loads of bananas in the bush behind my house - but even with offers of cash, I can't get anyone to actually go and pick them for me. It's quite strange.

I was expecting an island paradise with bountiful fruits, but so far, it's been rather crappy in that area. There seems to be one citrus-type fruit that grows on the island, and depending on how big the fruit is, they either call it a lime, a lemon or an orange. In any case, it's very very bitter, and the locals drink their orange juice with lots of sugar.

In order to get my daily fruit, I went to the market today and bought a machette. Walking home, some of the more shady locals who usually eye me up (how much money vs. how easy to rob) seemed to be a bit more hesitant to eye my money belt. Such is the case when you're holding a foot long weapon.

I'm slowly learning a bit about the culture, or rather, the mix of cultures.

The latino/spanish men seem to treat all women like crap - pinching asses on the bus, whistling/shouting at women as they walk by, etc. The latina women seem to take it, or at least are too scared to shout back. The carribean/black women, on the other hand, will have none of it - and shout at any man who shows them disrespect. I've had to stop myself from smiling a few times when a woman started hitting a disrespectful man on the bus.

I went to town today, got my machettee, a bucket for laundry, etc. I've got all the required bits now for a reasonable life. Food is crappy, for the most part. Rice and Beans every meal, and fried plantain when I want a change. A place down the road does do a fantastic vegetable soup, but they charge through the nose for it... We'll see how often I'm willing to pay 80 cordoba (4 USD), or 5x the price of rice and beans for it...