Blogs from San Andres, Colombia, South America - page 2

After another incredibly mediocre breakfast (translation : we taste some of it) we spend the morning walking around the town. Our goals, once more, are to call our daughter in Israel, and mail a postcard. You would think these to be realistic goals, and youd be wrong. We fail hopelessly on both fronts agreeing it must surely be easier in Cartagena, our next destination. Its a beautiful day and the water looks magnificent, but we can swim. Yesterday, while at Johnny Cay, Benjy, our son, suddenly started chafing and hurting from the sea water. It happened a year earlier in Honduras and we didn give it much further thought, but here we are 50 meters from the most incredible water you can imagine, and we e walking around luggage and duty free stores. We went from ... read more

Wir sind mit einer mittleren Maschine von Cartagena aus in einer Stunde nach Providencia geglogen. Die Gepaeckkontrolle war sehr streng. Alles wurde genau untersucht und jede Tube geoeffnet. In San Andres haben wir dann gleich noch den Weiterflug nach Providencia in einer 19plaetzigen Propellemaschine gebucht und sind zwei Stunden spaeter gleich weitergeflogen. Nach 20 Minuten waren wir schon dort und sind in einem kleinen Hotel abgestiegen. Von unserem Zimmer sind es nur ca. 6 Meter zum Meer. Es hatte zwar geregnet als wir ankamen doch es war trotzdem noch sehr warm. Die Insel ist sehr klein (7,5 km lang, 4 km breit, 5'000 Einwohner) und sehr bergig. Wir haben in der Zwischenzeit die Insel mit einem Boot umfahren, waren schnorcheln und baden, haben den hoechsten Berg bestiegen (320 m) was bei dieser Hitze und Feuchtigkeit kein ... read more

For a political cartographer, the island of San Andrés is Colombia. For some nicaragüenses, it’s Nicaragua, part of an archipelago unfairly allotted to Colombia by a 1928 treaty which Nicaragua claims was signed under duress during U.S. occupation of the Central American country. And for a tribunal in The Hague currently dealing with the dispute, it is… to be decided. The archipelago - which also includes the islands of Providencia and Santa Catalina, as well as a number of islets, cays and sand banks - is located in the Caribbean, approximately 720km from the Colombian coast and 220km from Nicaragua. Early inhabitants included Puritans and pirates, Jamaican slaves, and Spanish, British, Dutch and French colonists. North American Baptists brought their beliefs to San Andrés in the 19th century, along with the wood from Alabama which was ... read more

Another day in the beatuiful city of medellin. My sisters godfather invited us to have lunch, and to spend the day shopping with him. He took me to a jewlary store in medellin where they make jewlary out of animals horns. Doesnt sound pleasan but the jewlary is acutally very beautiful. there he had me pick out a set, so that he could purchase it for me. well after that we left to Botero}s musem. Botero is a colombia artist, who paint fat people mainly fat women. His work is one that i really enjoy, so he took me to see all the sculptures and the paintings. The sculputures have their own park, the park is arranged as a circle and then a parelle walkway. with large sculptures aranged with their title around the park, and ... read more

Andes is another small town, that surrounds Medellin. My dad was born there, and my cousin sandra's family lives there. In Andes her family has serval coffee farms. We left with Beatriz, sandra's mom early saturday august 11, towards Andes. The road to Andes has serval pot holes, and it's not fully paved. There was also sections were we had to wait for several minutes while people cleared the road, because rocks from the mountain fell along the road, and blocked traffic. Arrving in Andes we were immediately greeted by Beatrìz' dad, wh invited us to take a seat in the towns park. The park is the center of the town, more or less the place everyone hangs out. On the top there is a chruch and along the sides there are tables and chairs. it ... read more