Corn Islands - Nicaragua

Corn Islands beach

The Corn Islands are little gems of white coral sand and classic turquoise Caribean Sea waters. In the two islands, located at 50 miles from Bluefields, live approximately 8,000 people descendant from the original Miskito population, european pirates, British landowners and African’s slave that wrecked in its waters.

This area was a favourite haunt of pirates who roamed the Carribean, so is probably that many ancient wreck (some certainly still containing their rich cargo) lie under the waters around Corn Islands.

For centuries Corn Islands were under British domination until the year 1894 when the government of  Nicaragua declared his sovereignty. The English language is still spoke in the Atlantic Coast.

Legend has it that the first name give to Corn Island was Skeleton Island due to table scraps left over left over the resident Kukra Indian's cannibalistic appetites. English pirates and a few French, Duch, and other Europeans used the islands as a base of operations and resupply for their raids against the rival Spanish Empire's fleets and settlement region.

After a cenury, the British give up piracy but did not leave Corn Island. They stayed as colonists, first planting sugarcane then cotton. Plantations were worked by African slaves imported to replace the indigenous population the was decimated by disease or intermixed with new arrivals.

Emancipation came in 1841 at the order of Queen Victoria and is still celebrated with the annual Crab Festival, the crustacean being the basis for the soup newly freed slaves cooked to celebrate liberation.

The English drifted away, leaving behnd their language as well as their names like Blandford and Hodgson.

The food

The food that you can find on the islands is very good. You may walk along the beaches and stop an any restaurant and find a variety of sea food including fish, lobster, shrimps and crabs.

Not miss coco bread and a "RunDown," the official meal of Corn Island usually served for special occasions, which is a stew consisting of local seafood (or meat) and "bread kind" (breadfruit, cassava, plantains, coco, banana & sweet potato.) It is cooked down in coconut milk.