The pirate Henry Morgan secretly
used San Andrés as his base of operations for many years. Legend has it that this is
where he buried the fabulous treasures he stole from the Spanish, which have never been
found to this day.
The heavenly temperature is
29oC (84oF) year round. The sea and the beaches are the main attraction. The beaches are
tended with the greatest care and are groomed almost as meticulously as a golf course.
They are cleaned and raked at 5 a.m. every day for the tourists who begin to arrive at 6
a.m. and do not leave before 6 p.m. The archipelago is part of the second-largest coral
reef in the world, after the one in Australia. This barrier reef stretches along the
coast of Central America, passing close to Belize, Honduras and Nicaragua. It is visited
by a great many amateur and professional deep-sea divers. About 500,000 tourists visit
the island each year, 20% of whom come from outside the country. Fishing is also an
important source of livelihood here, as is farming due to the exceptional fertility of
the soil.