Alliteration allegedly uplifts the isolated during these tumultuous times. It’s not scientifically proven to help an expat family living in Nicaragua in an unprecedented global pandemic. But playing with words on my computer screen makes for some cathartic and creative downtime while the kids are taking their siesta and we are in lockdown here in Iguanaland.

Corn Islands, coconuts and corona crashes is also just how it happened chronologically. And I want to lead in with the good times, because when I gaze at my phone late at night and scroll a thorough mix of gloomy stats and bizarrely hilarious Instagram stories of friends projecting their insanity in self isolation, I feel we’re all on the online hunt for some good times.

Corn Islands is synonymous with good times. We made the epic car, plane and boat trek to Little Corn Island in the week leading up to my daughter Moon’s 1st birthday. My brother, sister-in-law and nephew had also flown over from Australia for my sister-in-law’s 40th, so we had a rather large crew and at least 2 birthday reasons to go to “de Caribbean, Mon”.

With 4 adults, a baby, a toddler and a small child to manoeuvre, this far flung Caribbean island of Nicaragua couldn’t feel further from our home on the South Pacific Coast. And some might question why we’d leave one rather remote, idyllic beach and travel 10 hours in transit only to arrive at another one. We also questioned if what we were doing was crazy when we began the journey at 2 am with 7 souls, 6 bags, 50+ sun cream, 4 coffees, 3 hangovers, 2 headlights, in 1 Prado and no partridge nor a pear tree.

But questions of crazy were resolved once we arrived at the Managua Airport and we joined forces with our other entourage of 5 bleary eyed Iguanaland friends (including another kid!) for this week-long adventure. Now a party of 12 and enough gringo bulk to fill the light aircraft that would transport our human mass and bags chocked full of freediving equipment, it was confirmed: definitely crazy.

Adding ‘crazy’ to the Corn Islands Crew alliteration, our massive collective then descended on Big Corn Island. We piled out of the tiny aircraft and into 4 tinier Hyundai taxis which scooted us off along tropical tree-lined streets to a clear-water ferry bay. There, bobbing between moored fishing trawlers and kids jumping off the concrete quay was a Panga. This mode of transport between the two islands is basically an oversized fishing boat with about 10 rows of timber slats, all ergonomically designed to break the backs of middle-aged tourists as it bounces its overcrowded human cargo across a ripping, windy sea.

Finally, after an hour (or 10), we got there! Little Corn at last. As we moored up to the timber wharf, it was immediately evident we’d made the right choice to travel. We were met by Kennard, our accommodation contact and before we realised it, he quietly piled our belongings 5 foot high on one wheelbarrow. With no more than a smile and a glance in the direction inland, he began carting our things and leading us silently across this tropic paradise. We carried our tired kids, and within 15 minutes we had crossed to the East side of the island and found ourselves perched up and slowing down in a delightful beach house on the breezy side of heaven.

Sweet, salted air evenings, early sunrise shifts with the babies and playing in a shaded sand garden was how we subsequently divided our time. Almost no WiFi led to limitless hours of lazy bliss in hammocks, swimming at the by our bedroom and wandering through inland rainforests. We also embarked on a snorkelling and fishing day by boat (insanely, we tried to take the kids). I can’t recommend this to anyone with kids, let alone 9 people with 4 kids, but some of us reaped the rewards of my brother’s fishing fortune- coral trout in coconut oil with grated coconut dressing.

A small piece of trivia: In Iguanaland on the Pacific Coast, we are blessed with almost year-round offshore breezes. Because of this, the waves are perfect for surfing but with winds that push out to sea all year, floating coconuts can’t wash up on the shores. Hence, as my Kiwi mate pointed out, no coconut trees at home.

Corn Islands? Ironically not a lot of corn, but definitely enough coconuts to notice the onshore breeze blessing. In the mornings the kids and I would fill our pockets with tiny coconuts bulbs, and then hunt down a big ‘Shake’m Coco’- yellow husked and filled with juice when you “shake’m”. Quiet Kennard would smile, nod and thn crack these treasures open with a machete and we’d slurp down the goodness before digging out the flesh with a wedge of the husk.

I think you get the island drift. Quiet Little Corn Island and all of its sandy foot paths, coco palm shorelines and shaded hammocks definitely earned a remarkable place in my heart. Its microsystem that pulled in afternoon rain clouds set it vastly apart from the relentless dry season that whips over on the West Coast of Nicaragua this time of year. Instead of dust up our nose each day, it was light sea spray. Instead of spiky thorns hiding in the sand from the shade trees on the Pacific Beaches, in Little Corn, you guessed it, coconuts.

In this little paradise, we got to watch the moon wax full into a super moon, cook “Ron Don” seafood stew over an open fire and drink coco loco (cheap white rum poured into a cold coconut). Under those stars, under those warm rain showers and beside the fire at night, we’d chat with backpackers and travellers of all walks of life about ‘the news’.

Coronavirus had swiftly hijacked the typical “where are you from?” conversation starter that you get on the road. This new trending topic spread itself effortlessly across beach bars and between strangers as action and inaction ricocheted around the planet, wreaking havoc on humanity’s everyday life. Already, each of us knew someone close to us affected by travel “advice and warnings” that shot up through Government announcements. But on this little island, in early March 2020, we still felt separated from it.

Naively yet naturally, with our collective and limited understanding of it at that point, it was there and we were here. The intensity that was booming internationally was penetrating our homelands, but on this far flung little atoll, and where zero official cases had been announced in Nicaragua, we just didn’t fear it. We all could see a degree of risk and agreed things would change in time. But I for one, had no bloody idea how short that time would be, and how radically we would change the way we live in the ensuing days.

When we left little Corn, the weather Gods blessed us with a windless day. We floated over a glassy sea like a dream back to Big Corn Island. We flew in the luxury of a large-ish plane, complete with air conditioning, and landed smoothly back on the Nicaraguan mainland, still in a world that we knew and understood.

 

With family visiting from overseas, we naturally squeezed in two more days of touring as if the world we knew wasn’t ending.  Even when the house next door to our AirBnB set on fire and burned to the ground, we were still enjoying our misadventures! At least it was a danger we could see, understand and manage.

When we weren’t running away from fires or fighting them as the case was for my brother, we watched howler monkeys swing past the trees by our balcony. We stayed on the banks of an extinct volcano and jumped off a pier into the volcano’s core, now filled by a freshwater lake. By night we sought out an active volcano, and gazed down at the bright bubbling lava while the stars blinked down over us. We refrained from jumping in here.

We ate and drank at hotels, dined at roadside restaurants with locals, mingled with other travellers and continued to chat about ‘the news’. Every day, a new consciousness was growing with more concern and caution, but nothing had hit us yet.

Now ‘yet’ has hit us. By the time we got back to the coast, international news and the cascading closures of countries’ borders was signalling a new world disorder. Governments locked down, the WHO declared a global pandemic, and quickly, rather than slowly, we got to where we are now: an understanding of how the virus works, an understanding of the maths and the science, an understanding of the need for self-isolation.

Less lonely than some, we are lucky enough to be a multiple family household in self-isolation. As well as our nanny and her son who moved in with us 2 weeks ago, my brother’s family are now Nica refugees because their flights home were cancelled and the transiting countries literally locked them out. Their journey to this point was fraught with trials for them both. They spent painfully long hours in phone deadlocks with airlines and tried countless avenues to try to get home. But as it turned out, they got stuck with their family in paradise. And while the health system offers little confidence to those of us who remain here, there are certain positives that lead us to conclude this is the best place for us to be right through this time.

As long as we continue to take precautions and keep ourselves safe, our new 9-piece family will never be short of conversation or a swarm of cute kids to distract us with their innocent joy. We have a forest with families of monkeys in our backyard, the beach is across the road and we can still wave to our beautiful neighbours as they wander along the shoreline at sunset. As well as that, we are lucky enough to have a car and miles of uninhabited coastline. With careful preparation and a packed lunch, we can still pile our Brady Bunch into the Prado and take off to explore the world around us without fear.

We know we aren’t near the end of this. But we are at the beginning of something new as we look inside our home, and into our family’s souls and personalities with new attention. Despite the risks that we know exist in the face of this pandemic, I know one thing is true. I’m so lucky to be self-isolating where I am and how I am, surrounded by the safety and sanity net of my family.

If you’re lucky enough to be isolated with someone, get that someone to teach you something you never had time to learn and they never had time to teach until now. If you’re isolated alone, get out in the garden and teach yourself. Get your hands in the soil, grow edibles, trench compost, maybe talk to the plants! If you don’t have a garden and you’re in full solo self-isolation, bless your soul! Try to stay sane. Take advantage of technology, and don’t let it take advantage of you. Try not to read too much doomsday stuff and please, keep posting your funny-arse, Instagram stories to the world! I love you and I’m watching!

Stay home if you can, my friends. Stay safe.

Thank you Michelle Rossetto and Sophie Pontone for some of the gorgeous photos that this brightened this blog post!

For the past couple of months our little family has been getting grounded in the Central American gem of Nicaragua. We can’t lay claim to a wholly spiritual grounding at this point (unless you count Flor De Cana, the national liquid spirit that comes to us regularly at sunset).  What we are doing is staying in just one country, and not leaving anywhere in a hurry. With a lot of relaxing and a little yoga thrown in, it is rather grounding.

The little exploring we have been doing has been Nicaragua-based and by road. While to date, we’ve avoided locking our kids in the car again, we have successfully ferried our tribe to the volcanic island of Ometepe. Here, monkeys swung from fertile mangroves and we swam in what seemed like a sea but in fact, was a massive fresh water lake full of turtles and fish. Another time we also explored the colonial gem that is Granada and we tasted a bit of  the Nica nightlife, but for the most part, we’ve been immersing ourselves in a small coastal enclave known as Hacienda Iguana, or as I fondly call it, Iguanaland.

I only actually saw my first iguana yesterday. For a place with an iguana as its identity tag, the population ain’t strong. I’m told there are more around but I think the country’s burgeoning feral cat population has something to do with it. Nonetheless, where there are few iguanas, there are plenty of other lounging lizards soaking up the hacienda vibes. Some of them drink Toña and play volleyball on the beach. After almost 3 months of immersing in Iguanaland, I’m officially part of this satisfied species.

Hacienda Iguana is a gated community about 3 hours south west of the capital Managua. Situated on a huge tract of land that hugs a precious chunk of the Emerald Coast of Nicaragua, this place is home to a mix of ex-pats, Nicaraguans, and a plethora of wildlife.

When I say wildlife, I mean wild. Families of howler monkeys wake you with their roars in the early morning as they swing past in the treetops with their babies. Birds of every description nest, swoop and show off in the natural flora and along the coastline. Every afternoon hundreds of pelicans fly south along the wave break, gliding in formation or pummeling schools of fish like raiding dive bombers. It’s a perilous situation for the fish, but it’s impressive to see these glorious, silhouetted slayers swooping against a setting sun.

Then there are the turtles. Sharing the ocean and the beach with these beauties is a true blessing! And in Iguanaland, various businesses team together to help protect the endangered Paslama turtle through a nursery project. If the eggs aren’t first poached by hungry humans or certain men who sell the eggs with the promise of increasing virility, the nests are saved by Iguanaland locals and nurtured (safe from cats and poachers) until they hatch. Under the careful watch of this team, we local iguanalanders are able to help the baby turtles make their maiden voyage to the Pacific Ocean.

Of course not all wildlife is welcome in my heart and home. The rogue cats are my number one concern. Not only are they decimating the native animal population, one feline is so crafty that it knows how to slide open our screen door and prowl in to clean up the kitchen bench at midnight! This wouldn’t be soooo annoying, if we hadn’t recently removed a boa constrictor who was curled up at the front door one night. My heart does backflips when I think about that particular visitor, combo that with the cat’s open door policy and the fact that my baby is sleeping on a floor-level travel cot. I rectify it all with a slightly paranoid but thorough daily sweep of the room before sleeps, and I figure, maybe the scorpions will scare the snakes away. Symbiosis in Nicaragua! Minus the cat.

Culturally, Iguanaland is a bit of a bubble. Being a gated community means limited access unless you own or rent somewhere on the hacienda. This model of safe albeit somewhat elitist living means the culture here is vastly different to the Nicaraguan one that thrives in its own way, outside the gates. Iguanaland can feel more North American with splashes of Nicaragua and if you don’t leave, you might end up with a yankee accent. Just sayin’, ya’ll.

Some expats we met living outside the bubble cheekily said “If we wanted to go to California, we’d come to Hacienda Iguana”. I corrected them- most people are actually from Florida! And what’s wrong with that?  They are some of the best on ground! Not to mention the Russians, Polish, Venezuelans, Spanish, Uruguayans, Canadians and wild women from the Basque country mixed in with a good helping of Nicaraguans! Representing the southern block of the planet, there is even a family of Kiwis and now as the token Aussies, we are adding to the mix and churning up a culture in this somewhat sheltered but delightful melting pot!

It’s hard not to feel we’ve found paradise when we start our day drinking coffee at the beach and playing in tidal pools with our kids. Once our hair is wet and our souls are salted, I dinky (double) my son on a bike to his  Montessori preschool where he thrives in a bilingual education system and makes friendships with Nicas and Expats alike. Afternoons are equally difficult to dislike. Converging down at the beach volleyball net, we generally see out the day with a surf or by toasting to life with good mates while our kids play in (or eat) the sand. It’s an lucid dream but when I wake up, I find I’m still in it.

This little community is made up of good people giving it a good crack to settle in Nicaragua and make a livelihood and contribution both inside and outside of the bubble. Importantly, we don’t have to lock our doors at night and we fear nothing (except what the cat lets in). We also leave the bubble regularly as most people here do, lest we go crazy or become a permanent fixture at the happy-hour bar. We jump in the car and head down the dirt highway, dodging cattle crossing the street and counting pigs on the roadside. As we see our kids’ hearts open to the people and their eyes open to the wild and rugged land that is Nicaragua, we feel ourselves striking the perfect balance of safety and adventure.

Iguanaland has us hooked and happy. Nicaragua has us wanting more. As a result, we have decided to stay longer. Don’t ask how long… we don’t even know! One thing we do know, if you’re coming to visit (and you should), you just might find yourself immersed a little longer than expected as well. Consider yourself warned.

While the neighbourly ‘drop in’ is tragically dying at a rate of knots, the Wittys have steadfastly maintained an ‘open door policy’ wherever we’ve lived. Admittedly we are pushing the proverbial uphill here in a small island of 2 million inhabitants. It’s news to noone that the bigger the city, the fewer the drop ins… so while we rarely lock our front door (mostly because we forget to), the spontaneous morning cuppas or arvo sundowners around the kitchen bench that we so relished in good old Darwin just don’t happen!

Despite this disastrous situation we faced given our incessant craving for spontaneous social nourishment, we have actually received a few International ‘drop ins’! Since we broadcast an open invite in our blog for friends and family to visit us in our foreign abodes, two fabo parties have taken us up on the offer and their company has set the bar high!

First and foremost, Team Ireland descended from the skies and taxi’d to our doorstep, seeking out sunshine, festival vibes, and above all, adventure! Beautiful Bex, Ambitious Ant and their toddler sized diamond, Delilah Mae Moon, arrived in the height of the Canadian summer and we took to the streets like the rockstars we all are!

It should be noted this trio of troopers not only met with us in Portugal during the initial Atlas Vagabonds 2017, they also took us into their home in Ireland (specifically the cow shed) and showed us a rollicking good time through the bonnie banks of Bantry. With International street cred like this we knew Atlas Vagabonds 2019 would be impossible without another reunion with this Irish family!

As a motley group of 7, we biked Montreal as Bixi Bandits en masse (see point 4) and celebrated the wild and unruly Pride Festival that soaked through our streets for a solid week. We did bars and cafes with kids, ticked the box with plates of sloppy poutine, kissed the skies at the Hot Air Balloon Festival and also managed a getaway into the countryside in Mount Orford National Park. This gorgeous sojourn was a short trip out of the city and the quaint chalet towns were connected by glassy lakes, hiking trails and perfect little picnic spots. Some of us walked the trails, some of us braved the refreshing waters, and the one of us even ran about 20km of mountainous mayhem throughout the park without any water, just for fun.

On reflection we agreed the visit from Team Ireland was as beautiful as it was challenging. Don’t get me wrong. Team Ireland were great craic. Team Toddler: not so much! As parents who were all on our “L” plates when it comes to understanding the mind of the toddler, we underestimated the challenges that lay unforseen when we opted to bring two confident, outspoken 2 year olds together for 10 intense days of activity. We may have pictured love bubbles and Instagramable cuddles. We may have envisioned joyous games of tip-chasey and building blocks together. We may have even thought a bedtime bath could be shared without a punch thrown. Look, we thought wrong, but who could blame us! They both looked sooo cute from the outside…

The toddlers were toddlers. And they had us en guarde at every other moment of each day. But between the rather aggressive conflict that was the Delilah-and-Finn-ship, they had their good okay moments, and the rest of us definitely had fun! Our mini Moon, miss Tallulah, was easy to please. And as for us ‘oldies’, we could sit back and laugh off the toddler tyranny with a cold drink at the end of a warring day!

Before Team Ireland left the Village, our second contingent of International visitors arrived- my parents! This overlap emulated a similar situation in 2017, when my folks flew to Ireland for Bex’s 40th birthday bash while we were also there! Talk about travelling troupes! Two years later, the 9 of us reunited in Montreal and we ripped up the splash pads, dance floors and streets of the Gay village throughout Montreal’s epic Pride Festival. It was a gay old time.

When that exhilarating culmination of visits eventually ended, we found ourselves back as a fam of four. And you know, after all the excitement and mayhem of visitors we thought, ‘This is good, we like it!’. Until of course we realised that having a toddler and a baby is the most stressful combination of responsibility we’ve ever encountered and, actually, while being alone and finding time to get into a routine COULD be the answer, we big kids are still trying to figure out what the questions even are!!

We’ve had to adjust. In the past few weeks Witty and I have been knuckling down, seeking routine, and finding the ‘normal’ in the new world of double kid parenting. Contrary to popular belief, even people who “bravely” whisk their kids off to international adventures also suffer all the parenting dramas. We rush around. We trip over a lot. We fumble with decisions. We laugh when we can and play practical jokes on each other. But we also lose sleep. We also lose battles to babies and unavoidably, we also lose each other from time to time.

Lucky for us, we still have Montreal and its people to help bring us around again. As Autumn comes on, chasing squirrels and picking apples between weekend trips to the countryside with colourful friends has boosted morale and given us the courage to carry on! 

As well as that, my cross-continental, binocular-wearing, bird seeking parents have just come back into the fold. And with them, we share that familiar family vibe. The one that can drive you bat-crazy, but can also bring you the best laughs and the loveliest moments  with no effort at all. 

With this grandy lot, we’ve shared lazy days in Le Village and little road trips afield. We’ve pushed the pram through Quebec’s Old City, wound through historic and charming villages like those on d’Orleans Island and some of us even skinny dipped in the glacial rivers that run wild with trout. On Friday we spontaneously took part in an historic 500 000 – strong climate strike that was led by one of our young wonders of the world: Greta Thurnberg.

On the weekend we skipped out of town to the luscious ski village of Mont Tremblant. We rode the gondola to the top and did all of the ‘hiking’ that groups spanning 3 generations can muster! Importantly, Mary and I took part in a divine escape to a Scandinavian Spa! Sadly, breastfeeding duties and other agendas allowed only 3 hours for the occasion but it was worth it. Luxuriating Mamas, we got this! And hats off to my husband for suggesting the indulgence. Love you Witty!

Leaving Tremblant was a feast for the eyes. We took the back roads to see the colours of the leaves bursting with brilliant warm hues and we topped off the trip with some wild interactions at Parc Omega. It was excellent fun for all involved as we got up close and personal with nature’s bigger and bolder creatures! My suggestion? Take carrots. 

As we plan our next steps to Nicaragua, I feel eternally grateful that my parents brought me up with the gift of travel. I am just plain lucky to have the option to pass this wanderlust to my kids too, but sharing the experience across three generations is truly the icing on the cake. I mean, whose parents chase you around the world just to play with their grandkids? Mine. We are glad these entrepid oldies continue to wear out their passports whenever and wherever they can.

Long live the travellers and visitors from afar. And just in case you were wondering, you’re still invited to catch us in Nicaragua!