Providencia: Island Paradise

Everyone told me that I would adore Providencia, so I was determined to go. Unfortunately, it isn't the easiest place to get to because it´s about 56 miles north of San Andrés. You have to take a tiny plane from San Andrés for 30 minutes or take a 3 hour catamaran ride in open water. Well, the plane was already sold out, so we had to spring for the catamaran. It. Was. Hell. I seriously wanted to die about 20 minutes in. Basically, as soon as we left the calm inner waters of San Andrés, it was ROUGH. Like, the boat was doing 5 foot drops, and every time it did, my stomach went with it. I held out until Nadia got sick for the first time, and then I just couldn't stop. Luckily the boat crew seemed totally familiar with my type, and kept popping up to take my vom bag and give me more. I'm not kidding: a large percentage of the passengers vomited at least once, and several were on the vom train like me.  Haha, sorry to be graphic. Is anyone even reading this?

When we arrived,  I was so weak and nauseous that I just sat/laid down on the pier so that we could be the last in line to pass through the security check. Because I wasn't getting up, the woman came over to take our papers and 2 young, cute cops came to inquire if I needed the hospital! I said no, just the hotel. All I wanted was to lie down and go to sleep! One of the cops said he'd get us a cab, and I agreed - I didn't care if the hotel was 20 feet away - please God drive me there! The cop was so sweet- held my hand and guided me to the cab haha. We got in, and I put Nadia in charge. Interestingly, our hotel was on the far end of the island, so it was a 10 minute cab ride. Thank God for that one single cab driver!

The owners of the hotel figured out our room for us even before it was officially ready, and I passed out for a few hours. I felt MUCH better when I got up, thank goodness! The owner of the hotel had seen my green face earlier, and was happy to see I wasn't going to die in his hotel room. He even kindly brought me a Sprite and then informed us that locals lovingly call the catamaran the "vomitaran." I guess I don't feel so terrible about it anymore ;)


Nadia and I took our first stroll on our beach, South East Beach. It was quiet and only a few people roamed about. It. Was. Heavenly. The fresh air revived us and we wandered up the streets to find what would become our favorite place on the island: Cafe Studio. This tiny restaurant was an island miracle. Within seconds we became friends with the friendly server, Pamela, and we ordered our first meals. I went with a plain fish fillet so my stomach wouldn't revolt, and I filled up quickly. We had heard about their famous pies, but decided to wait until the following day to eat that much sugar. After dinner, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset and then opted for an early night in.


The next morning, we ate a nice breakfast in the hotel - eggs, bread, and fruit juice. We had told the hotel owner we wanted to do the "tourist" thing, which was a 4 hour boat ride around the island. I know, you must be thinking I was crazy to get back on a boat so soon! This boat, however, stayed in the shallow, calm waters around the island, so I didn't have any problems! Our boat was mostly filled with Spanish speakers, but the tour guide also used English so that Nadia could understand. After all, the islands were once British colonies, so English is commonly used by much of the population (in addition to an English Creole and Spanish - Linguistic nerd alert!!).

The boat crowd voted to skip a stop in town and spend most of our allotted time at Caye Cangrejo (Crab Island), which was the best decision anyone ever made in their life. Cayo Cangrejo is part of a national park called Old Providence McBean Lagoon, and the waters of this protected area seemed utterly fake, they were that beautiful. Nadia and I couldn't get over the blends of blues - it was like we were in a Disney simulation park! I had heard that San Andres and Providencia were part of the 7 colored sea, and now I absolutely believe it. I have only seen water that rivaled this national park in a few isolated places - Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Simply stunning.


Our boat docked and Nadia and I decided to wander up the short path to the top of the islet for some otherworldly views of the surrounding waters. Then, we descended for a beer (me) and a coco loco in a coconut (for Nadia). Our tour included snorkels, so we set out in the water and swam around. To be honest, there wasn't so much to see other than a few colorful fish and a few leafy green sea grasses, but it was great to experience snorkels again, especially in light of the fact that I wanted to go diving the next day. We snorkeled for a good 45 minutes and then laid on the dock, took in some sun, and watched the people around us swim and entertain themselves.

We eventually left the park and went to another beach for lunch and a bit more sun. We finished in Aguadulce, a beach just north of our own. We went to the supermarket to get some cash, and walked back to our beach. We showered and then walked back to our favorite diner! We were smarter this time and shared an entree so that we had enough room for dessert - two massive pieces of pie/cake! Heaven in my mouth. We went back to the hotel and chilled out, reading in hammocks, etc. I also arranged to go scuba diving the next day!

I woke up early the morning, super excited to go diving! We were staying at a hotel/dive shop, so I just had to walk outside and meet the fellas. The Divemaster told me that they swim in their bathing suits, and when I told him I was a delicate flower, he let me borrow his rash guard shirt to put under the BCD :) The plan was to do 2 relatively shallow dives. We arrived at the first site and I jumped in the water to put on my BCD. I was a little nervous because I hadn't been diving in a few years, but once we started to descend, it felt exactly like riding a bike - completely natural.

Within a few minutes of the first reef dive, we spotted our first black tip reef shark. He was a bit in th distance, but I thought, hey cool! Then we spotted a second, third, fourth, and fifth! Some were extremely close to us  - one even came within 10 feet of me. I hovered with my body turned up towards the surface so that I could watch him - and get ready to punch if I needed to - but he was just looking at me too. Underwater, sharks are pretty harmless and curious. The rest of the dive was nice and we saw some pretty corals and fish, and the visibility was also really good. I tended to stay behind the other 4 divers, all of whom were fairly new to diving and made a lot of movements. I preferred to stay in the back, slowly follow, and do my thing. The DM checked on me once and then realized I was good to go.

We surfaced and one other diver said, "You're so peaceful under water!" When I told him  I was also a DM, it made more sense haha. We got on the boat, drank some water, ate some oreos, moved to the next site, and descended once again. At first, I thought the site was worse - the visibility wasn't as good, and there was a current that gently washed us back and forth from side to side (I can't remember what this is called). I saw some flounder, a sting ray, a couple cool things. Then we ascended a bit to the top of the reef, where there were giant schools of fish. I was ecstatic because I knew what that meant - I could swim into them, and they would part around me just like in The Little Mermaid. I was giddy with delight - I swooped and dove into them with total confidence in my buoyancy. The others did not go down as far, which was smart. I went down really close to corals to look at a fish, and the wishy-washy current caught me and pushed me up against the ONE hard, tall coral. Since I was only wearing bathing suit bottoms, I cut open my upper thigh. It was actually kind of deep. Did you know blood is green underwater? Good thing the sharks were at the last site ;)

The dive ended and I was sad to ascend. The captain and the DM both tried to convince me to do two more dives that afternoon, but I wanted to spend the afternoon with Nadia. We agreed to meet up for some drinks later. I showered and Nadia and I went back to our favorite restaurant for more deliciousness. Then, we read in hammocks again. Damn, vacation is great!

Around sunset, the DM and captain came to pick us up on their scooters for some beers. The trip really wouldn't have been complete without me getting on the back of some semi-stranger's scooter, haha. Don't worry, Dad, it was respectable. We ended up doing a mini tour of the island since the first place we went to was closed. The island is only 6.6 sq miles, so you can circumvent the island road in less that 30 minutes (using island speech, which is slow!). We ended up on the beach at a tiny tiki bar, and had some hilarious conversations, mostly because the Captain and I were trying to translate everything for the DM and Nadia, who didn't speak the other person's language! Eventually, Nadia went to bed and I chilled on the rooftop of the dive shop with the guys for a couple more beers. The said I should go back this summer to work with them. Oh, the temptation!! When I started yawning at midnight, they started making phone calls to find out where the next party was - and they had to work the next morning at 8! How!?

The next morning was our last day in Providencia. We relaxed all morning and only ate breakfast because we weren't sure how it would go on the vomitaron. Luckily, the water was much calmer,  we went in the direction of the wind, and we arrived in less than 3 hours! The motion sickness pill also worked and I didn't get sick once! It. Was. A. Miracle.  Once we were back in San Andres, we only had a few hours before our flight back to Bogotá. We dropped our bags at the hostel, found some dinner, and then went to the airport. I was really sad to go back, as I dearly loved being at the ocean. Til the next time, islands!