San Andres,
Columbia
22-February-2019
San Andres is
a positive surprise.
As expected it is a beautiful tropical island but several
cruisers had said we should not bother stopping as it was so commercialized.
Several years ago a Columbian president decided to make San Andres a duty free
port and a playground for wealthy Columbians.
The main town is situated on the
north east end of the island and the waterfront has a Malecon, sidewalk, that
follows the coast from Nene’s Marina around the coast to a long white/golden
sand beach.
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The clean Malecon
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white sand and hotels |
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kite surfers and shade tents |
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A new lifeguard in town. |
The beach has long expanses of shade tents with chairs rented by
the tourists who stay in the large hotels and apartments that line the land
side of the shore road and malecon. In the blocks behind, modern high
ceilinged, air conditioned, full frontal glazed, immaculate modern stores
representing the name brands entice the wealthy tourists to spend, spend. SPEND.
Actually, most of the stores have few or no shoppers and the beautiful, young,
smart-uniformed staff stand by the open front doors, perusing their cell phones
while mildly curious if the passers-by may indeed enter the store. There is a
Columbia Brand store where for a mere $1,600,000 Columbian Pesos, now quickly
do the math and divide by 3,000 to get $266ish US$, for one of their ubiquitous
fishing shirts. I passed.
The beauty
of San Andres lies immediately beyond the big brand stores. In the nine days
there Mags and I developed our “go to” merchants in the small crowded shops
where if they did not have what we wanted they would give us directions to
another small, crowded shop that appeared to have everything the previous
merchant had plus that one thing we were searching for. Oh, and for a price
comparison, I managed to by two pair of soccer shorts for $12 US. We often ate
in the small cafes where a large bowl of soup, a quarter of a big chicken or
several pork chops, with salad, rice, beans and bread cost $3 to $4. Poor Mags
was generally full after the soup.
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Balconies on a government office and our
grocery store beyond
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The people,
shopkeepers and other customers, were incredibly friendly and curious as to
where we came from and I think, more than mildly surprised that we had ventured
into their side of town. The tourists do not. We did go to a higher end
restaurant, The Gourmet Shop,
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The Gourmet Restaurant's pork medallions in sauce and chicken on a baked pear sauce |
San Andres
is very safe, with the exception of the traffic. Timing your crossing of
streets to coincide with the flow of motor bikes, golf carts, quads and cars is
an art we perfected in Asia and were soon back to using. Just do not change
your pace or intention. We rented a quad and drove on every road on the island,
first the coastal perimeter and then the various interior roads. We stopped for
a ceviche and camarones lunch, lunch, watched the wind from a coastal blow-hole
blow the tourist’s long hair vertical and stopped for a very good snorkelling
excursion on a deserted lava-lined beach. Well, deserted until the other people
in their rented vehicles saw us and decided we were where they should be.
Actually, great fun and we were surprised how many of the tourists were from
Brazil. We also visited an old wood structure home Museum that had raised
generations of San Andreans, with a lovely guide explaining the old implements
and furnishings, some of which Mags and I grew up with. In the interior
villages the smiles were infectious, from little children to the elderly.
Again, we encountered no tourists off the coastal road. So, quite clearly, San
Andres is a tale of two places and the very good side so completely outweighs
the part that did not appeal to us so we are really happy we stopped.
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Ceviche and Camarones |
The marina staff led by owner, Nene and supported by Antonio and Guillermo were really helpful and friendly as was our agent Rene. Our marina
neighbours, Stephan, originally from Belgium, and his wife, Pamela, from Costa
Rica, on s/v Coco Prinz were enjoying the drier cooler air of San Andres
so much they decided to stay another week or so. They were fun people to be med
moored beside. We had been across the dock from them in Bocas del Toro. Cruising can be a small world.
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