Colombia: The Unspoiled Speck

It is only a flyspeck island off the coast of Nicaragua, but last week the tiny Colombian colony of San Andrés was churning up tidal waves all the way back to Washington. More than 100 sporting types from New York had been flown down to the island by chartered plane as expenses-paid guests of the El Dorado Hotel. All they had to do was buy a few stacks of chips and give the hotel’s casino a chance to win back the price of the junket. The trouble came when several guests tried to cash in chips, and the hotel refused to honor them. The ensuing uproar got so noisy that Colombia had to fly in several peacemakers; a U.S. consul hurried over, and Washington’s Civil Aeronautics Board even called for a full-dress review of all such junkets to foreign and domestic gambling meccas.*

Any Number Can Play. Gambling is only the latest racket for San Andrés—brought on by hard times. Up to now, the island’s real business and pleasure has been smuggling. In 1959, hoping to promote tourism, the Colombian government made San Andrés a free port, decreed that any five-day visitor could take $150 worth of goods back to the mainland without paying a centavo in duties. Before long, luxury-starved Colombians were stocking up on everything from perfume, booze and china to radios, phonographs and TVs.

Mainland duties are high, and what came cheap on San Andrés brought two and three times the price in Bogotá. Completely banned items, such as birth control pills, turned a 400% profit. Travelers strapped wristwatches the full length of their arms and legs, stashed contraband in dirty clothes where inspectors are loath to rummage. Airline crews left booty aboard for cooperative maintenance men to pick up. And women who weren’t pregnant often left San Andrés looking as if they were.

Any Port in a Storm. From 1960 through last year, according to one thoughtful estimate, 235,000 Colombians visited San Andrés and returned home with $120 million worth of merchandise, well over three times the legal limit. That represented a dizzying drain on Colombia’s dollar reserves. So last month the government abruptly slammed the door. Henceforth, every San Andrés traveler could bring back only $20 worth of goods—and he could make only two trips a year. The ruling spelled disaster for the island. A wave of bankruptcies swept the business district. Unemployment zoomed. Over Radio Havana, Fidel Castro eagerly urged San Andrés to revolt against “Colombian imperialism”—and join his own unspoiled paradise. Soon the only visitors to the island were bill collectors. Things had come to a pretty pass. Which was just when somebody thought up the gambling junket idea.

But by last week the new little moneymaker seemed headed for the same fate as smuggling. The Colombian government ordered the El Dorado casino closed and intimated that the island ought to try something legitimate for once. That may be difficult. The tourist-folder boast that San Andrés is an “unspoiled paradise” is only too true. The island has yet to be spoiled by a decent electrical system, or even running water. And now with the kibosh put on gambling and smuggling, it should be some time before the Caribbean speck is spoiled by tourists.

* Heading for such places as Las Vegas, the Bahamas, and South America, the all-expenses-paid junket has become something of a big deal with gambling promoters. Several large hotels in Vegas have representatives carefully scouring such nongambling, big-money areas as Boston, Hartford, New York and Dallas for “big rollers,” offer them everything free from soup to nuts if they will come on down to join the play.