Nicas are a proud people. Neither the Spanish conquistadores nor the hate-loved Gringos could bring them to their knees. For me, from all of the petit Central American countries, Nicaragua is the most exciting. I like the the dark Pacific beaches and surfer dude atmosphere of San Juan del Sur on the Pacific side. But it’s Little Corn Island on the English-speaking Caribbean side which immediately felt like no place else to me.

It looks like everyone’s universal Caribbean fantasy and getting there was half the fun: First my friend and I toolk a prop-driven airplane from Managua to Big Corn from where a panga boat took us to Little Corn. There foot traffic is the only kind. We walked along the one “road,” a cobblestoned path that locals use to roll wheelbarrows from one coast of the 1½-square-mile island to the other, I felt a distinct sense of place. We passed a baseball field where the local team played against the team from neighboring Big Corn, as well as cottages painted in Caribbean blue, pink and oranges, from which women sold locally caught fish and homemade coconut bread.

Between the Pacific and the Caribbean there are charming little colonial towns, often with majestic volancos towering above. I just visited two: Granada where, William Walker, the slightly crazy Tennessean adventurer and megalomaniac, once declared himself President, and the university town of León, which became my favorite. Maybe just because of the unexpected little baile on the Cathedral rooftop of Laura, a student. There is no way to copy the unbearable lightness of latino being.