Old Providence and Santa Catalina

The 20th of july Colombia celebrates their independence. The 23th of June Providence and Santa Catalina celebrate becoming part of Colombia. First a little intro about Old Providence and Santa Catalina.

San Andres is an island group. San Andres is the capital island where I live. A few hours by boat away from the capital island you can find Providence and Santa Catalina who are also part of San Andres.

The islands used to be a part of England, that's why 40% of San Andres and almost all the people in Providence and Santa Catalina (where you can still find more the original culture who is not yet as Colombianised as San Andres) speak Creole (a mix of native english, spanish and some also say french). Although San Andres is part of Colombia, the culture is more similar to the culture of Jamaica where they also speak Creole.

I had the opportunity to visit Providence and Santa Catalina during the carnaval. Before the carnaval even began, people in Providence already started partying a week before. 1st day of carnaval: guys dressing up like girls, lots of flower, beer, music, this is the way how they get on their motorbike to go around the island.

2nd day of Carnaval: party all day! 3rd and last day, 23 of june, a boatrace around the island and at night miss Providence gets elected followed by concerts of many artists from all over the Caribean until the sun comes up.

The week of carnaval is the only time when you have a lot of noise and action, normally the islands are really quiet and peaceful.  San Andres is a popular tourist destination, you can say that old Providence and Santa Catalina are still unknown compared with San Andres.

Providence and Santa Catalina are attached by a bridge that is called the bridge of the lovers.

In Santa Catalina, on the other side of the bridge, there is a cave called Morgan's cave. The people believe captain Morgan had his treasure there. In one of my blogs you could already read about the Morgan cave in San Andres, well this is the one of Old Providence and Santa Catalina. We had to dive to be able to enter the cave, what was really exciting because it wasn't too easy to find.

There is also a rock on the island that is called Morgan's head, because.., yes indeed.. it looks like a head.

Where pirates are, you find canons...

Apart from Morgan's cave, I discovered some other caves myself, I named it the Astrid cave :).

On a saturday morning we woke up at 6 o'clock to go fishing: one of the best, most beautiful and unique things I've done in my life. We catched 12 fishes and a lobster. In the middle of the ocean we found a sandbank where we prepared our meal. You can't get it fresher than this. I can honestly say that I am one of the first people who has ever been there (accept than maybe the local fishermen :p).

Just as San Andres has Johnny key, Rocky key, the Aquarium and Haynes key, you can find Crab key in Providence (the keys are the small islands around the bigger island I was talking about in one of my first blogs). 

We had the most beautiful view over Providence and Santa catalina out of here.

After a wonderful time in this unique little place in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, time to go back to that other little piece of paradise, back to my San Andres.

Goodbye Providence and Santa Catalina. 

In the meantime..

I write a lot about the trips, but there are some people who already asked me what I do in the meantime...
You could already read earlier in my blog that I graduated in november.

Graduation year 2011-2012

I am an exchange student, this is different from other students. I don't think there are many students who do first the last part of the schoolyear, receive their diploma and graduate to start in februari with another class the first part of the graduation year..? Well..., that is how I did it. You can see here the class I started with in februari.

Graduation year 2012-2013

I already had my diploma, so I searched for some other things to do. I did a course business management for three weeks. 

I also did a course where I learned a little more about the oil industry and the problems around it. The island where I live is a rich source of oil. Oil means money, but the island is a natural reserve. The people of San Andres don't want that the oil industry destroys this reputation. 

This problem goes together with the problem between Nicaragua and Colombia. A little history... if you look at the map, you can see that San Andres is closer to Nicaragua than it is to Colombia.

The part of the ocean of San Andres is very big, it reaches almost until the coast of Nicaragua. Nicaragua wants this part of the ocean to become part of Nicaragua. I already said, San Andres has oil, oil means money and money is good for the economy, I don't think I have to make a picture with this one..

I already mentioned in one of my blogs that San Andres has the third biggest coral reef in the world. I think that's a pretty good reason to leave the oil where it is so it can't destroy this. I supported the people of San Andres because I fell in love with this beautiful underwater world. That's how we come to the third course I did, my dive certification. 

I met spongebob in real life, I became friends with lionfishes (lionfishes are one of the most beautiful fishes, but also kind of dangerous), I visited one of the pirates their sunken ship, barracudas, waterspiders, little fish, big fish, small corals, big ones,...  

short: an amazing world that is for a lot of people still unknown.

There are also some exchange students who visited me here in San Andres, one of the things we did was visiting Providencia. More of that in my next blog. 

Greetings from a beautiful place somewhere in the Caribbean.

Manizales

Colombia is known for many things: its colorful flowers, juicy fruits, its delicious coffee,.... The rotary conference of 2012 was in the coffee area. We had the chance to attend this meeting and get to know this beautiful area.

Rotary meetings in Colombia means parties, lots of parties and all kinds of them.

Sadly, this was also the last time that all the exchange students were together...