San Andres and Providencia are two islands that belong to Colombia, but are just off the coast of Nicaragua. I was debating between a 6 day trek, through rivers and sleeping in hammocks every night–or the stunning Caribbean islands–it was a tough one.
When I was getting on the plane, I saw two friends I had shared a room with back in Santa Marta. The world of Colombian Backpackers is a small one. They were a super friendly Australian couple staying in one of the hotels on the beach. Mine was in town, but steps to the main beach. The first day I found town to be dirty, sketchy, unwelcoming and the beach was full of drunks. So I went out to visit the Aussies at their place the next day–it was gorgeous. The beach was beautiful, the food was good, and you could charge pina coladas to the room. It was heaven.
So, the next day, I decided to switch hotels to the Cocoplum. I rented a golf cart for the day for us and drove out with my bag strapped on the back. Getting out of town was a wee bit of tricky, but the rental guy showed me how to get out and let me drop him off on a random corner. After checking in, we took the cart around the island to check out a few things. Our first stop was to get the Cuba Libres (pre mixed in cans obviously) and to find a cooler and ice.
Driving around the island was a huge amount of fun. We stopped in at some beaches, and went to a few view points. We also drove up to the lagoon in the middle of the island–as we were driving a woman (although at the time we were unsure of the sex) in overall shorts with an oversized t shirt and a baseball cap yelled out and hopped on the back of the cart with me. Beatrice was going to show us the lagoon for a good price, as our tour guide.
She was an interesting woman…everywhere we drove she and her male friends would yell, “Boss, boss, boss,” at each other. The tour was interesting though. We ate some natural cocoa/chocolate off one of the trees, opened a coconut, saw a crocodile that was in the middle of having lunch, and saw fresh cashew nut fruit. We checked out a few other sites with Beatrice, including a tree she claimed had some sort of power that we hugged…without shoes on. Sounded very Avatar to me. She was an enthusiastic tour guide–constantly taking photos of us that we were “going to LOVE”, although they were possibly the worst photos I’ve ever had taken, haha. We did pay for the enthusiasm though; we really shouldn’t have asked how much she usually charges or any of that…because we ended up paying her far more. Ah well. She was the sweetest teenage boy I’ve ever met.
At one point during our cruise around the island, I was eating some coconut and a man on a motorbike came up right behind us. He was motioning for my coconut, so, I held it out and he grabbed it as he passed by us waving a thank you. The people on the island were so different from mainland Colombia. Everyone knew everyone and they were all happy and content (outside of the town drunks that is…). It made the island that much more pleasant to be there.
We went snorkeling one day–the coral reef was stunning and there were so many fish. The guide gave us buns while we were swimming to feed the fish and at any given moment you might have 30 fish eating out of your hand. They were all so vibrant and unique looking. It was far better than I expected for a snorkelling trip. After, they took us out to an island and sand bar off the coast where sting rays swam. When the boat stopped, you could see at least 20 sting rays swimming around under us. The guide jumped in without hesitation and informed us that as long as we didn’t step on one, they couldn’t hurt us. He must not have heard that the crocodile hunter was killed by one of these deadly, dangerous creatures.
You could actually hold them in your arms–they were huge…and slimy. But they swam around us–seeming to be interested and grazed our legs as they soared past. It definitely freaked me out a bit, but I held one and watched them swim around me for a while. They were extremely calm and smooth creatures. It was a wild experience.
One of the first nights at the Cocoplum, two boats ripped across the bay in front of the hotel, stopping right in front of our beach. It was hard to know what was happening, but the staff began looking really worried and telling everyone to get back. A police boat had stopped a boat apparently involved in some drug trafficking. We walked on the beach to see what was happening. There was some sort of commotion on the boats, and the police fired two shots into one of them–another one jumped off and started swimming to shore, while the other two stayed on the boat. At that point we ran back to safety of the restaurant unsure what to do. Heavily armed police began searching the shore for the one that swam to shore.
We started drinking heavier amounts of rum, unsure what else to do in a situation like that. As one guy said though, at least we know Colombia is working hard to fight the drug trafficking, and are succeeding in catching some of those behind it all.
All in all it was a fantastic few days on the island. I had actually spent an extra day without realizing it; however, when I arrived at the airport after skipping my flight the day before–they just charged me a $30 fee and put me on the one I thought I had been on. No problemo.
The Cooliris thing above shows some of my pics from San Andres. Click the diagonal arrows in the bottom right corner to get it full size and click on the individual photos to view them.
