From My Notebook 48 Years Ago In Cartagena: A Boat To San Andrés

Still following my notes from 48 years ago in Cartagena on the Caribbean coast. Trying to get to Panama, but with no idea how to get there, I took my bike on a boat to a pirate island, San Andrés.

At sea

There were flying fish, but no albatross this time. It was a fairly easy sea. Ship was “Ciudad de Zap … something or other.” Captain talked to me once. Said his grandmother was Indian. He looked fairly Indian too. The ship was putting up its entire stock of pennants in a grand show. I asked why. He said, “This is the first visit of the ship to San Andrés.”

How did we get on to drugs?

“I refused to carry them. I have a family in Baranquilla. I have been offered $15,000 just to take one packet, but I value my tranquility too dearly. Some others who went to the naval school with me are already millionaires – but they have no tranquility. Once you carry drugs you can’t stop. They would kill you.”

I can imagine Denis Nahum’s scepticism, but this captain seemed honest to me.

We were two days and nights at sea. The third night we spent anchored on the lee side of the island and then drew in. (One of the ties snapped and the boat crunched on the quayside. No rubbers, either).

9th April

There were two ships at the dockside waiting to leave when I arrived. Both were going to Panama. I felt unhappy about having to leave again within hours but knew I should try. (The explanation of these fits of urgency, interspersed by periods of timelessness must be explored somewhere.)

However the bigger of the boats was going to Bocca de Torres, the United Fruit Company port from which there is no exit other than by boat or by plane. The smaller boat would not take me.

San Andrés. – ten miles long, seven miles wide, reputed haven of Capt. Morgan. Some beaches of crushed white shell and coral – rest, ugly black coral. Two little islands – perfectly round with coconuts, – cartoon desert islands – called Johnny Cay and Aquarium.

Found Amigo Pepa sitting on his lot, watching his new house go up. He said he wanted to preserve the style of the original islanders. Talked about the days before the island got crowded – quoted cheap prices and said nobody used money.

Amigo Pepa’s new house on San Andrés

Said he was building his house out of all natural materials. I was a bit uneasy – it sounded too pat, as though he’d been taking ecology lessons from visiting gringos. He had a carpenter making the frame of the house – a little man with bloodshot eyes called Brachman – named after Dr. Brachman who strode out of the mists of legend to give his name and then apparently disappeared again. Brachman gave an impassioned and drunken eulogy of Dr. Brachman on my second night which was impressively eloquent.

[But I’m still no closer to knowing who this mysterious doctor was].

Slept in hammock between coconuts – the splashes of black against the sky.

Gringo lady with little son – shrieking with anxiety and unaware of it – talking of Pepa as great man – fending me off (for no reason).

The English couple on the boat – he thin, gaunt, bespectacled, looking helpless, but innately tough, she plump, baggy – like babes-in-the-wood. Talking about the fish we were going to grill on the beach.

We got ourselves a four -and-a-half-pound bonito, failing red snapper. Then two huge black men telling us the fire was illegal – move to Pepa’s – the iron bedstead torn out from under a fallen palm to grill on.

Pepa’s green jump suit – his huge son, “I have found bottles in the sea. I have found several bottles in the sea. Yes, several, several, several. I have found several bottles with messages. Sad messages, man. Yes, sad messages. I saw a message in a bottle that broke my heart.”

Pepa said he smoked a lot of dope. He has letters from people in England and USA. Showed me one from Trinity College, Bristol. All charter holiday people to Trinidad, I expect.

The town of San Andrés seems to be called San Luis. In the middle it’s smart cement shops; then up the side of the island past the port, it’s wood. Tarmac, then dirt. Pepa’s is at the beginning of the dirt. You can get into the sea there, over flat rocks, with sea buds growing, and urchins lurking in crevices. Green water, blue sea. So clear. On the Aquarium – looking at fish – glorious.

I spent two nights on San Andrés. Through Skip I met the Argentine couples, Jeanine and Malcolm Donaldson, and Manuel Pedro Peña and his honeymoon wife Pixie – the last with his easy laugh, and easy claim to supreme court judgeship, which is so embarrassing.

Malcolm is a doctor, Jeanine an architect. She has some incurable weakness which makes her unsteady. She can’t drink alcohol. She is very attractive (Skip was aflame). They met in hospital and she wanted to tell me what a very good man he was. He probably is too – but in South America any man who is free of the worst traits of machismo will seem like Christ to any intelligent woman.