The beach dwellers of Providencia don’t like taking orders from big shots in distant Bogotá, though their pristine Caribbean island 450 miles (720 kms) off the mainland has been part of Colombia since 1928. The 5,000 residents, many of them descendants of pirates and slaves, stand adamantly apart. They prefer English to Spanish and reggae to salsa, and they allow visits by Colombian mainlanders just four months a year. When wealthy Colombian investors sought to build hotel complexes and condominiums on Providencia, they were politely but firmly rebuffed. Instead, the local government tightened environmental and building codes, prohibiting new buildings with more than two stories and banning swimming pools to save precious water resources. Providencia still has plenty of visitors exploring its Old Providence-McBean... [Log in to read more]