The Adventures of San Andres

Now it is time to share some stories about this really cool little island. When you have nothing to do give it a read,

Our first morning on the island kicked off with a bit of entertainment Caribbean style. Clearing in with Customs and immigration ehre, is not your typical bureaucratic affair. No stuffy offices, instead the officials come to us, lounging in the shade on rickety old chairs that have certainly seen better days.

An official looking guy strolls in, scoops up our passports and vanishes for a good 30 minutes. Then just casually as he left, he reappears, hands them back and just like that we are legal.

To celebtrate, we grab them a few beers, which they happily sip in office hours, because hey, island time is a real thing.

Off we go on a mission for some fresh juice only to be mortified when we get the bill, and it says $19,000 Our hearts stop, and our wallets are crying .... $19 for 2 juices, 😬. This place is gonna drain us dry, mentally I am working out exactly how quickly we can get off this island.

Resigned to our fate I shove a $20 bill into the folder .... After getting a very weird look from the waiter, I get back this huge pile of cash ... well did we feel like idiots for not checking the currency, of course they use Pesos, not USD like Panama. To be fair there was a dollar sign on the bill. Feeling both foolish and rich as can be, Eric beelines for the ATM and withdraws a cool 1 Million Pesos! He was in his element, the first time ever he could draw 1 million from an ATM.

Yesterday we cruised around the island in a really fun little buggy, called a "Mule", which was the perfect ride for exploring the island. The predominant form of transport here is a motor bike and scooters, helmets are not worn by anyone and there certainly are no rules to the road except to avoid collision. Little scooters are loaded with the entire family from newborn babies to toddlers with their dolls and parents.

The most striking thing here is the fact that the water is not just blue, it is actually a masterpiece of colors. They call it the Sea of Seven Shades and it truly is, from deep sapphire to crystal turquoise and everthing in between. We tried to capture this in photos, but it was just not possible, some things are just meant to be seen through the lenses that God gave us.

There is one road that circles the entire island, and it is all of 26km long.

Now as usual I can write for ages and battle to keep my stories short, so I am going to try just give you the highlights. Our first stop which happened to be at 09:00am was a cool reggae bar where we had a light beer, this just felt appropriate somehow. Needless to say, my very tall husband walked under a roof that was too low for him and manager to bash the top of his head open on a rusty screw.... I mean really he has been this tall for 37 yeaars and this still happens.

Oh, and I forgot to mention as per our Swedish government we are not actually supposed to be in Columbia or Venezuela, so this means we are not medically covered here.. oh well let us keep it interest hey?

As we are cruising along happuly taking in the sights, a group of wild looking guys suddenly jumped into the road, waving us down. They were very eager to get us into a place that, at first glance, looked like absolutely nothing ... and maybe even a little sketchy. But hey, we were up for an adventure, so with a mix of curiosity and probably some recklessness, we pulled over and decided to see where this was going.

Well once again a very pleasant surprise, behind what looked like nothing, turned out to be an awesome place with little shops and most exciting of all was something called a blow hole in the ground and as the waves come in water just explodes out of this hole! So fun!

We also met an awesome couple, American wife Coco and her Colombian husband Juan who were on holiday and right there was a budding friendship, we ended up spending a really fun evening of dancing to reggae music from our era and a few good laughts until some very unreasonable hour and of course we made some very early morning plans thinking we would be fresh as daisy's...

As we woke up this morning, my initial thought was to cancel, however I knew without a doubt I needed some exercise and to get some physical activity in my day.

Oh man what a crazy day we had it certainly was physical and utterly insane, again I remind you we are not supposed to be in Columbian territory.

Off we went, ready to explore a little islet called Johnny Cay, completely unaware that the real adventure would be getting there and back.

Chaos does not even begin to describe it. Picture this: A wildly overcrowded boat, packed with people like a full-on migrant raft, rocking violently with every wave. No dock, no anchor, no ropes securing it, just a dreadlocked Rastafarian clutching a single rope, trying (and mostly failing) to keep it steady while the current tossed it around like a cork. Broarding? A total free-for-all. One guy literally hoists the woman up and tossed us in like luggage. Graceful? Not even close.

I attempted to film some of the madness, but between the bouncing boat, the flying passengers , and the sheer WTF energy of it all, let us just say ... the journey was hysterical and a ton of fun despite the total disregard for safety.

Turned out that Johnny Cay was a cool place to be, very pretty and full of vibe and atmosphere and a really fun daym with new friends, got some exercise in and managed to have a load of fun despite how we felt when we woke up.