World Colombia San Andrés y Providencia San Andrés

Sue and Kim Trying Not to Get Kidnapped in South America

Isla de San Andres Oct 18, 2009

Wanting some more beach time before heading south into the inland and cooler weather, we hopped on a plane Thursday to Isla de San Andres. The island belongs to Colombia but it wactually situated north of Panama and to the east of Nicaragua. Only 13km long and 3km wide, it is definitely the most isolated place I have been to in my entire life. Our first afternoon here we got off the plane and WALKED into town, it only took about ten minutes to find a dozen or so little hotels, all within blocks of the beach. The water here is amazingly clear and about 7 different shades of blue. The entire island is surrounded by a big coral reef, I think someone said one of the top ten largest in the world. We rented scooters on Thursday and did the entire loop around the island in the blazing hot sunshine, it only took a couple of hours with plenty of stops along the way.

The culture here is very intersting, because of its isolation the language and everything is very distinct. We are the ONLY white people here, even among tourists. The native culture is very black, and they all speak a type of english/creole with a jamacian sound to it, its very difficult for us to understand but really fun too. They also all speak Spanish of course, and there are a lot of Colombian tansplants who only speak Spanish. Prices here are at least double what they were on the mainland, which is expected because everything has to be imported. One of our local friends, Julio, told me that the island only produces 3 things: pescados, cocos, y negros (fish, coconuts, and black people).

The weather took a turn for the worse yesterday, and has been cloudy and raining today as well, which is too bad. Its still very hot out though, and we are going to go snorkling despite the lack of sunshine. Met a Colombian from Bogota who teaches kitesurfing, so if there is wind and we are lucky we might get a lesson. Tomorrow we fly back to Cartagena and then on Tuesday we are off to Medellin, which will probably be our last major stop in Colombia before heading down to Ecuador. I am already feeling like we don´t have nearly enough time in any place...the feeling of rushing off to see the next sight is preventing us from really slowing down like I would want to normally when travelling. I guess I will just have to come back!