3 posts tagged “san andres”

I keep offering little teases about the island and the resort but I haven't posted anything yet.  Too many things to talk about is the problem I think - I don't know where to start.  Here are a few pictures to make up for my lack of writing prowess.

We stayed at an all-inclusive resort - the Aquarium, so-named because it sits right in the water and fish swim around the boardwalks and in the swimming area.  I waded through a school of small fish to get into the water when I went swimming.  They're so used to people sloshing around near them that they didn't bother to get out of my way.

On our first day, we toured the island in one of the huge old Chevrolets that do duty as taxis there.  The driver drove along doing about 20 km's an hour with his arm out the window so that he could point out the big houses on one side and the boats way out on the horizon on the other side.  If he had something particularly interesting to show us, he just stopped on the road.  The slow, erratic driving didn't seem to bother anyone - everyone meanders around in second gear it seems.  We hired a broken-down old golf cart the next afternoon and drove to the next town on the main road.  The cart didn't exactly race along, but we found ourselves passing scooters and buses on the way.

Even with stops and our slow speed, the taxi got us all around the island in less than three hours, because it's so small.  I got a bit delirious looking at the bright blue water and white sand, and thought I might move there to go swimming every day with all the local kids.

The taxi driver stopped at a couple of little tourist traps so that we could feed fish and drink rum out of coconuts, for a small fee.  The island's main business is tourism, and it's not a very prosperous-looking place once you get away from the resorts, so I didn't mind handing over some Columbian pesos.  We looked at crabs and souvenirs and dodged the gangs of dogs that were lurking around.   The island has a huge population of dogs, all making free with the place, having sex in the street, and crapping wherever they please.  They don't seem to belong to anyone in particular but they all look well-fed.  We also found a large grey cat to hang out with while we had our drinks.  I made Travis take pictures of the cat because it was so big and healthy-looking - it didn't cooperate though, hiding its face at the crucial moment.

Six months into my stint in Central America and I'm still trying to get my head around the fact that I live in the tropics now.  San Jose really appeals to me - it's warm and welcoming, and full of lively, social people.  Just leaving the house leads to adventures, even when I'm only going to the supermarket.  Going into central San Jose is an exotic, chaotic treat.  And an evening out has all kinds of possibilities - you just never know what you might bump into.  We live in a big bright apartment with a maid who comes in twice a week to make it all tidy for us.  We've visited volcanoes and driven to the beach and the jungle.  And last weekend, we stayed on a Caribbean island, complete with white sand beaches and palm trees.  As Travis said tonight, "It doesn't suck!" 

It surely doesn't.

The cold and damp of a Vancouver winter seem to belong on another planet.  Now I only read about the persistent rain, the mid-afternoon twilight, the heavy grey clouds massed just above the buildings.  (And this year, about snow and windstorms, power cuts, and water advisories.)  They don't exist for me in real life.
 

The change is so total as to be surreal.

The Talking Heads song - Once in a Lifetime - sums it up pretty nicely.  "How did I get here?"

What's the next country you want to visit? 
Submitted by Schomer.

Columbia.  Specifically an island off the coast of Columbia called San Andres (after the fault in California).  We know some people who went there recently and loved it - they raved about it last time we saw them.  I'm imagining a tropical paradise with palm trees, white sand beaches, and warm water.  We're going there this Friday to live it up for a few days.  I'll let you know what it's like, with pictures, when I get back.