On San Andres, a small Colombian island in an archipelago off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, counting the blues within the well-known “Sea of Seven Colors” is on each customer’s to-do record. It’s a noon process completed en course as you cruise some of the cays, or keys, dotting San Andres’s jap facet: low-lying (most commonly) uninhabited specks that aren’t a lot more than coral crowned with palm bushes and turned around through sandbars.
From my bobbing perch, I counted six: a deep sapphire, a dusky azure, stripes of teal, turquoise and cerulean and, within the distance, a swath of sensible cyan in opposition to the threshold of a tiny, palm-fringed island.
“Do you see seven?” the boat’s captain requested.
When I informed him my tally, he laughed. “Six?” he stated. “That means you can still relax a little more.”
San Andres isn’t at the radar of many U.S. vacationers, however in Latin America, and particularly amongst Colombians, this is a coveted honeymoon vacation spot or a long-weekend retreat — a place in the course of the sea to disconnect from no matter weighed you down at the mainland.
Connecting with historical past
The archipelago of San Andres and Providencia is greater than 400 miles north of the mainland of Colombia, and nearer to 100 miles east of Nicaragua, however because of a ancient wrinkle this is nonetheless being ironed out, it is a part of Colombia.
Kent Francis James, 73, used to be the archipelago’s governor throughout the Nineties and instructed the present native and nationwide executive on boundary problems with Nicaragua. But his pastime, he stated after I met him on San Andres, helps vacationers attach extra deeply with the island’s historical past.
“We want you to come here not just to get your skin burned, but to bring home a better understanding of Caribbean history,” he stated, as we sat on his house’s balcony and loved the view of the water within the distance, framed through bougainvillea and palm bushes.
Mr. James scanned the horizon and identified the shipwrecks that muddle the island’s waters. “We were geographically on the route of the Spanish going up the coast with gold, so this is the place the pirates used to be on watch,” he defined, describing how voyagers steadily underestimated the shallow waters surrounding the islands’ many cays and ran aground — to the satisfaction of pirates just like the Welsh-born Sir Henry Morgan, who is assumed to have used San Andres as a base of operations.
We have been technically in Colombia, however Mr. James spoke in clipped English — his accessory itself a nod to the island’s historical past.
Although it’s believed that the Dutch and Christopher Columbus landed at the archipelago, it used to be the British who settled San Andres round 1630. English used to be the island’s first language, and nonetheless nowadays it’s spoken through the local islanders.
Unlike maximum puts in Latin America, San Andres has no file of Indigenous peoples at the island. It used to be reputedly uninhabited when the Europeans arrived. And that’s why when locals discuss with “native” islanders, they’re relating to the descendants of the unique British settlers or, extra regularly, the descendants of the once-enslaved Africans the ones settlers introduced over.
This Afro-Caribbean ethnic staff is known as Raizal, a takeoff of the Spanish phrase for “roots.”
Posadas Nativas
Cleotilde Henry, 75, is among the island’s Raizal leaders. Her circle of relatives strains again to the African slave business, she defined, as she set out crunchy slices of fried breadfruit and balls of candy coconut on her eating room desk. She didn’t make the treats only for me — she units them out on a daily basis for the vacationers who hire rooms within the upstairs of her house throughout the island’s posadas nativas, or local motels program.
“I was born in this house,” she stated, pointing across the small front room to yellowed circle of relatives portraits in wood frames and crocheted desk coverings. “So when I thought about what I could do to make money from tourism, the only thing I had was this house.”
Today Ms. Henry, who could also be the president of the archipelago’s Posadas Nativas Association, rents 12 rooms, which may also be discovered underneath the title “Cli’s Place” on travel-booking internet sites like Booking.com.
Across the archipelago, round 200 properties had been designated “posadas nativas,” providing a possibility for vacationers to stick with a neighborhood circle of relatives — normally underneath the watchful eye of the matriarch — of their house, and to consume native, Raizal meals.
It’s the native strategy to a common problem: retain the original id of a spot when tourism begins booming. Less than twenty years in the past, Raizal folks accounted for 57 p.c of the inhabitants of San Andres, however every yr that quantity will get smaller, as Colombians from the mainland are lured to the blue waters of island existence.
A bikini and a golfing cart
Although the seashores of San Andres don’t seem to be some of the most lovely on the planet, the water a brief distance offshore is, because of the sunken reefs, and such a lot of guests skip exploring the internal of the island in choose of having rainy.
Each cay differs from the following. Johnny Cay, which sits around the water from the extra populated northern a part of San Andres, looks as if the dictionary access for “deserted island”: a clump of palm bushes ringed through white sand. Rocky Cay isn’t a lot more than its namesake rock, with a lean-to seaside bar and a rusty shipwreck protruding of the water beside it. You succeed in Haynes Cay through wading thru waist-deep water, keeping a wobbly rope connecting the cay to a no-frills eating place constructed on a sandbar. A normal day vacationing in San Andres comprises bopping some of the cays, pausing to doze in opposition to their palm bushes or swim within the water round them, and, alongside the best way, counting blues.
Like the pirates of the previous, nowadays’s snorkelers and scuba divers are overjoyed through the sunken ships dotting the waters, as they get to discover the underwater ecosystems created through the ones wrecks. In 2000, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization established the huge Seaflower Biosphere Reserve, an infinite safe marine space surrounding the islands.
“It’s like a mountain range under the water here, and that’s why we have deep spots but also these sandbars and cays,” defined Jorge Sanchez, 68, a former dive teacher at the island who invited me to his house one afternoon to view topological maps of the world’s ocean ground. Waving his hand throughout one map, he added, “The ocean species don’t know where the border is between Colombia and Nicaragua, so this is a great place to see all kinds of animals from different places.”
Even when you don’t benefit from the waves, San Andres is a beautiful environment to benefit from the seven sun shades of blue from afar. And the not-too-steep hills and smooth-enough roads imply that the breeziest, most exciting approach to do this is through renting a mule (pronounced moo-LAY), a little bit golfing cart, the standard approach guests get across the island.
I’d by no means pushed a golfing cart any vital distance, so when Ms. Henry steered that I placed on my bathing swimsuit and take one across the island, I balked. But about an hour later, I used to be smiling like a idiot, the sea wind blowing again my hair as I chugged down the street ringing the coast at about 25 m.p.h., with bikes zipping round me. I cruised previous the cays, hopping within the water when it known as to me, making my approach all the way down to the island’s much less populated southern finish. I finished for lunch on the Raizal eating place Miss Janice Place for fried fish and coconut rice.
On the best way again, I deliberate to swing through Mr. James’s space, to inform him about my day. Without a just right cellular sign at the island, the one approach I may just do that used to be through popping in, so I headed towards his position, till the chugs of my mule changed into much less widespread, and I after all learned the engine had close off. My trusty mule used to be sliding backward down the hill. I slammed at the brake, slowing the slide, however couldn’t get the engine to show another time. Fortunately, some software employees witnessed the scene, suppressed their laughter and got here to my rescue. They improvised an answer and hauled the golfing cart to the highest of the hill the usage of lengthy wires. I informed them I used to be visiting Mr. James, and some of the employees grew to become and shouted over a wall of timber — “Mister Kent! We found an American!”
Grinning, Mr. James emerged from his belongings to greet me, and as I waved a thanks to my utility-worker heroes, he defined he wasn’t shocked to look me.
“Because a tourist can spend their days on the beach, and fill their stomach with our food and rum, and then go home and never return,” he stated. “But once you start to talk to locals about our history, you will always want to come back.”
If you pass
Gustavo Rojas Pinilla International Airport has direct connections to Panama City, Panama, and a couple of towns in Colombia, and from San Andres it’s imaginable to get a flight to the neighboring island of Providencia.
Once at the island, one of the best ways to get round is both through taxi, simply present in downtown San Andres or organized prematurely, or through mule, which may also be rented for round 200,000 Colombian pesos, or about $51, according to day.
Staying at a posada nativa, or in the community owned inn, is the utmost immersion enjoy at the island, and steadily would be the maximum inexpensive accommodation possibility; be expecting to pay about 235,000 Colombian pesos an evening with breakfast. Cli’s Place Posada Nativa, Posada Nativa Licy and Miss Trinie’s Posada Nativa are probably the most most well liked.
For a extra upscale enjoy, Decameron operates many lodges at the island, together with the Decameron Isleno at Spratt Bight seaside, a centrally situated, all-inclusive possibility for roughly 1,000,000 Colombian pesos according to night time. Hotel Casablanca gives rooms with a view of Johnny Cay for roughly 1.1 million Colombian pesos according to night time. Short-term condo choices also are to be had thru Airbnb. Many are inside of condo tendencies and feature facilities like swimming pools, doormen and gymnasiums.
Niko’s Seafood is a midrange eating place close to the middle of San Andres serving fresh-caught fish cooked for round 50,000 Colombian pesos.
La Regatta is possibly the fanciest eating place in San Andres, that specialize in seafood like ceviche for 75,000 Colombian pesos a or grilled lobster with coconut rice (215,000 Colombian pesos) served on a patio over the water close to central San Andres. Reservations required, request the patio.
Miss Janice Place at the southern finish of San Andres in San Luis gives standard Raizal meals for 40,000 Colombian pesos for mains accompanied through coconut rice and jars of herbal fruit juice.
Namasté Beach Club San Andres is close to Rocky Cay with elegant living room chairs and a menu starting from seaside snacks like empanadas (round 30,000 Colombian pesos) to correct dinner like fried native fish (50,000 Colombian pesos).
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