Laguna de Perlas is a Creole village on a huge brackish lagoon north of Bluefields, and it is the friendliest introduction to Nicaragua's Caribbean coast — English-speaking, slow, and much easier to reach and to like than Bluefields itself.
The boat from Bluefields takes about an hour up the Escondido and across. From the village, pangas run out to the Pearl Cays, a scattering of small sand islands with reef around them and hawksbill turtles nesting between March and September, and up the lagoon to Miskito and Garifuna communities — Orinoco is the main Garifuna settlement in the country and holds its festival in November.
Nothing here is organised for visitors in any formal way, which is most of the appeal.