Providencia is San Andrés's smaller, wilder sister. It lies in the same Colombian archipelago, far out in the Caribbean near Nicaragua, about 90 km north of San Andrés. Where San Andrés has resorts and traffic, Providencia is quiet, green, and mountainous, and its people speak English and Creole more than Spanish. Many say they feel more Caribbean than Colombian.
The island is small, around 5,000 people, and it rises to a peak of 360 metres. A 100-metre footbridge, known as the Lovers' Bridge, links it to the tiny island of Santa Catalina just off its shore.
The reef
Providencia's fame lies underwater. Off its coast runs a barrier reef about 32 km long, the third largest in the world. The reef sits at the centre of the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve, a protected area that covers around a tenth of the entire Caribbean Sea. The water is clear, the coral is alive, and divers come from far for it.
Pirates and Morgan
Like much of this coast, Providencia has a pirate past. The privateer Henry Morgan used the island as a base for his raids on Panama, and places across the island still carry his name. Stories say some of his treasure is still hidden here. Whether or not that is true, it ties Providencia to the same raided Caribbean as Portobelo and Cartagena.
The crabs
Once a year the island belongs to its crabs. Every April and May, thousands of black land crabs leave the hills where they live and march down to the sea to lay their eggs. Roads are closed to let them pass. It is one of the strangest and best-loved sights in the Caribbean.
The Raizal heart
Providencia is the heartland of Raizal culture. The Raizal are Afro-Caribbean and Protestant, descended from enslaved Africans and Jamaican settlers, and they speak an English-based Creole. Because the island stayed small and far from the mainland, that culture held on here more strongly than on San Andrés. The same people and speech reach along the coast to Bluefields, Limón, Bocas del Toro, and Colón. Providencia is one of the places where that older Caribbean is still whole.