Exploring Caribbean

· A lively, graphic, full-color guidebook to the best of the region. · Color photography and archival and other illustrations throughout; zingy captions. · Intelligent, opinionated writing by James Hamlyn. · Solid travel reportage on every region punctuated by lively sidebars on voodoo, bananas, Nelson's Dockyard, Bob Marley, and other historical and cultural matters--all packed with fascinating trivia. · What to see and do, plus unspoiled beaches, snorkeling and diving, and recommended tours. · Special rating system identifying not-to-be-missed sights. · To-the-point reviews of dining and lodging. · Key planning information. · Over 20 detailed maps and plans. · Comprehensive destination/topic index.

THE CARIBBEAN IS



Landscapes

Stretching in an arc from the bottom of Florida to the top of South America, the Caribbean archipelago is as varied as it is beautiful. Islands range in size from Cuba (4,124 square miles) to tiny Saba (3 square miles); mountains soar to over 2 miles high in the Dominican Republic, and flat sand-spits barely reach sea level. There are extensive rain forests in Puerto Rico and Dominica, and barren cactus-filled wildernesses in Haiti and Aruba. Even on one island, the landscape may change around each corner, as mangrove swamp gives way to pasture land and pine forests replace palm trees. Intensive agriculture and tourist development are gradually altering the Caribbean's contours and climate. Blessed with warm weather all the year round and cooled by the Trade Winds, the region is also occasionally cursed by violent rainstorms and hurricanes.


Known for its coral reefs and its beaches (every island naturally claims the best), the Caribbean also boasts waterfalls, hot springs, and caves. Two of the more bizarre geological attractions are Trinidad's Pitch Lake, a seemingly inexhaustible pool of hot black tar, and Jamaica's Cockpit Country, an inhospitable area of limestone hills and hollows, still populated by descendants of runaway slaves.


Changing nature

Humans have left an indelible impression on the Caribbean landscape. Once covered in virgin rain forest, the islands are largely scarred by deforestation and erosion. In Haiti, the island described by Columbus as the most beautiful he had ever seen, tree-felling and over-farming have created virtual deserts, where drought and famine are constant threats.


Different worlds

The past has shaped the look of the Caribbean through a variety of influences. Cities, towns, and villages bear the unmistakable imprint of former colonial powers. Spanish-built Havana, with its colonnades and plazas, seems a different world from British-built Bridgetown, with its statue of Admiral Nelson in Trafalgar Square and its "tropical Anglican" cathedral.      


Differing histories have also molded the countryside itself. In the formerly Spanish colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, sugar plantations stretch to the horizon as they have for 500 years. In Haiti, however, where a slave revolution expelled the French at the beginning of the 19th century, precarious smallholdings have replaced the hated plantations.


Despite the proximity of the U.S., European influence is still keenly felt. In the French départements d'outre-mer of Martinique and Guadeloupe you can buy baguettes, drink pastis, and see policemen in képis. There is no mistaking the Dutch style of Curaçao or Aruba, where gabled pastel warehouses lining the canal and port conjure up a tropical Amsterdam. And Britain has left much of the paraphernalia of colonial rule in its former possessions: red mailboxes, English place-names, and cricket fields.


The People

The Caribbean's people are all strangers in paradise. The original indigenous population all but disappeared within half a century of European conquest. Subsequently, people have come, willingly or not, from every corner of the earth. This process included one of history's biggest forced migrations -- the importation of some five million Africans into the Caribbean's plantation economy.


Arawaks and Caribs

Little remains of the people who predated the Caribbean's "discovery" 500 years ago. However, some of their words have entered the vocabulary -- barbecue, hammock, manioc, for instance -- but none of the placid Arawaks survived the cultural devastation of the conquest. Today, only a handful of Carib descendants are still to be found in Dominica and St. Vincent, scraping a living by selling their handicrafts to visiting tourists.


Europeans

Europe conquered, colonized, and re-created the Caribbean in its own image. The first European settlers named cities, villages, and rivers after more familiar places at home. But with few exceptions, the physical legacy of European domination is confined to the Spanish-speaking areas of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, which received influxes of European immigration well into the present century. Each island has its paler-skinned elite, but Europeans as such make up a tiny minority in Caribbean societies. The exceptions to the rule are the "poor whites" of Barbados, a community descended from indentured British laborers that has so far refused to intermix at all with other Barbadian communities.


Africans

The great majority of Caribbean people are at least in part descended from the millions of Africans who crossed the notorious "middle passage." Africa is alive in all dimensions of local life: music, language, religion, and cooking. "Jamaica Talk," for instance, the island's patois, is largely based on West African Ashanti dialect, while African speech and customs are commonplace in Haiti and around the eastern tip of Cuba.  


Indians

No visitor to Trinidad could fail to notice that 40 percent of the island's population is East Indian in origin. The shops and restaurants of Port of Spain are filled with the sounds, sights, and scents of the Indian subcontinent, while in the countryside Hindu prayer flags surround peasant homes. In Guyana, slightly more than half the population is Indian, descended from the indentured laborers of the 19th century.      


Inequalities

This rich diversity of race and color conceals massive inequalities, within and between individual countries. In Haiti, for instance, the one percent of lighter-skinned mulattos dominates the black majority. In most other countries, a so-called "pigmentocracy" exists, equating light skin with economic and political power. After more than 30 years of independent government, Jamaica's P.J. Patterson is the first black politician to hold the post of Prime Minister.