We’re here in San Andres. And its faulty. We’re only here for logistical reasons really. In that we need to fly home at some point, I’m afraid, and to do that you need to go to Bogota. They don’t fly there from Providencia cos the runway’s tiny and you can only fly turbo-props in and out. So they fly you to San Andres from where you can get to Bogota in 2 hours, which is just 11 more hours of chronic discomfort and diabolical food from civilisation. If Heathrow could ever be so termed.

So yesterday we took the 22 minute hop over to San Andres for an overnight.

This is the other ‘Colombian’ caribbean island. Next to Prov. up there a hundred miles off the coast of Nicaragua. Its the bigger island and… bigger. And one day, when its finished, it might even be lovely. Though its seriously stormy here at the moment. Typically tropical, you could say. But the weather’s not the issue. Its the rubbish.

You know when you’re clearing out the shed or dismantling an old wardrobe and you think, in that exclusively manly way, that a lump of wood, six foot long and four foot wide, ‘might just be useful one day’ so you decide to keep it. Just in case. Well San Andres has elevated that form of collectomania to an industrial scale. So it appears, as you see massive piles of driftwood and corrugated iron and lumps of concrete, in front of every single house here, along with old boats, fridges, (big) bits of cars and bikes, that no-one ever throws anything out here. Ultra-recycling mania. And yet next door is all the stuff they have thrown out, but no-one’s collected. Or maybe they leave it there for others to ‘enjoy’. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. Who knows that someone else might ‘need’ a seized-up cylinder from a 1973 Suzuki 125? Its an act of altruism to leave it there by the roadside.

So whereas Providencia maintains a beautiful unspoiled ‘quaintness’, San Andres is a fucking tip. Where nothing works. And best of all, attached to the top of the shower head is some form of heating attachment. With 2 wires just taped to the housing. Live wires. In a fucking shower. I looked up ‘health & safety department, San Andres’ and find it shares an office with the refuse collection department. ‘Closed on Mondays. Tuesdays, Wednesdays…’

It almost makes you wish for home comforts. Maybe that’s why we’re here.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx