Photos

San Andrés, Colombia

Beginning in 1629 the archipelago of San Andrés y Providencia was settled by English Puritans and Jamaican loggers. Then in the latter years of the same century it was conquered by the Spaniards, who would go on to rule most of Central and South America for the next two hundred years — although intermittently giving up parts to the English, Dutch and French rule. But by the middle of the 19th century large chunks of the land began to secede and gain nationhood. The ownership of the islands off the mainland, however, remained a source of considerable contention. Finally, in a treaty between Colombia and Nicaragua (Treaty of Esguerra-Bárcenas), reached on March 28, 1928, the sovereignty of the San Andrés y Providencia archipelago was assigned to Colombia, and sovereignty of Mangle Islands and Costa Mosquitia to Nicaragua.

It was on a four-week Caribbean cruise spanning mid-December 1975 to mid-January 1976 on the Royal Viking Sea, that I visited the island. While exploring various rooks and crannies of the island, I saw local natives inspecting a large lizard shot by one of them. I asked if they would pose with their kill. (Fashionable at the time were “Afros,” evident from the young man on the right supporting a short-cropped Afro.) On San Andrés most of the natives are bilingual, speaking both Spanish and a variation of English, “Creole,” but even when a language barrier exists, pointing to one’s camera, with a smile, generally produces success. They were most obliging, indeed with four of them “lending a hand” in displaying the lizard. Two others in the background, their right hands visible, resisted the temptation to join in, or could not find enough space to poke their hands through the crowd.

I shot the film with a Nikon-F, loaded with Kodachrome-25 slide film, which I scaanned recently for posting on TE. Clearly, this film is “ancient” as photographic technology goes, but it was famous for its flesh tones, sharpness and permanency. It was also recognized for being agonizingly slow (ISO-25), but that hardly mattered in the bright sunlight of Central America.