Other sights in Caribbean Islands
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Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabaña
An 18th-century colossus, the FortalezadeSan Carlosde la Cabaña was built between 1763 and 1774 on a long, exposed ridge on the east side of Havana harbor to fill a weakness in the city’s defenses. In 1762 the British had taken Havana by gaining control of this strategically important ridge and it was from here that they shelled the city mercilessly into submission. In order to prevent a repeat performance, the Spanish King Carlos III ordered the construction of a massive fort that would repel future invaders. Measuring 700m from end to end and covering a whopping 10 hectares, it is the largest Spanish colonial fortress in the Americas.
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Marché de Fer
Several of Haiti’s cities have Iron Markets, but the original and best is in central Port-au-Prince. The Marché de Fer is an exuberant and exotic red-metal structure dating from 1889, which looks more akin to something from the Arabian Nights than tropical Haiti. In fact, it was originally destined to be the main hall of Cairo train station (hence its minarets), but when the sale from the Parisian manufacturers fell through, President Florvil Hyppolite snapped it up as part of his plan to modernize Port-au-Prince.
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Musée du Panthéon National
The Musée du Panthéon National is a modern, mostly subterranean museum set in its own gardens. Its unusual design echoes the houses of Haiti’s original Taíno inhabitants, a motif repeated by the conical central ‘well’ bringing light to illuminate the gold monument recreating the cannons and banners found on the national flag. The bodies of Toussaint Louverture, Dessalines, Christophe and Pétion are interred below, and the names of further heroes of the independence struggle marked on the surrounding walls.
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Turtle River Park
Near Island Village on Main St, this welcome new green space in the middle of downtown represents a positive new trend in Jamaica’s approach to urban development. The lushly gardened park with manicured lawns also provides a zone free from the hustle of the main drag.
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Señora Amelia Goyri
After entering the neo-Romanesque northern gateway (1870), there’s the tomb of independence leader General Máximo Gómez (1905) on the right (look for the bronze face in a circular medallion). Further along past the first circle, and also on the right, are the monument to the firefighters (1890) and the neo-Romanesque Capilla Central (1886) in the center of the cemetery. Just northeast of this chapel is the graveyard’s most celebrated (and visited) tomb, that of Señora Amelia Goyri, better known as La Milagrosa (the miraculous one), who died while giving birth on May 3, 1901. The marble figure of a woman with a large cross and a baby in her arms is easy to find, due…
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Firefly
Set amid wide lawns high atop a hill 5km east of Oracabessa and 5km west of Port Maria, Firefly was the home of Sir Noel Coward, the English playwright, songwriter, actor and wit. When he died in 1973, Coward left the estate to his partner Graham Payn, who gifted it to the nation. Today the house is a museum, looking just as it did on Sunday, February 28, 1965, the day the Queen Mother visited. Your guide will lead you to Coward’s art studio, where he was schooled in oil painting by Winston Churchill. The studio displays Coward’s original paintings and photographs of himself and a coterie of famous friends. The upper lounge features a glassless window that offers one o…
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Punta Cana Ecological Park
A half-kilometer south of Punta Cana Resort and Club, the Punta Cana Ecological Park covers almost 8 sq km of protected coastal and inland habitat and is home to some 80 bird species, 160 insect species and 500 plant species. Visitors can take very worthwhile 90-minute guided tours taken in English, French, German or Spanish through a lush 18-hectare portion of the reserve known as Parque Ojos Indígenas (Indigenous Eyes Park), so named for its 11 freshwater lagoons all fed by an underground river that flows into the ocean. The tour also includes a visit to the park’s botanical and fruit gardens, iguana farm (part of a breeding program) and a farm-animal petting zoo. The v…
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Rose Hall Great House
This mansion, with its commanding hilltop position 3km east of Ironshore, is the most famous great house in Jamaica. Construction of the imposing house was begun by George Ashe in the 1750s and was completed in the 1770s by John Palmer, a wealthy plantation owner. Palmer and his wife Rose (after whom the house was named) hosted some of the most elaborate social gatherings on the island. Slaves destroyed the house in the Christmas Rebellion of 1831 and it was left in ruins for over a century. In 1966 the three-story building was restored to haughty grandeur. Beyond the Palladian portico the house is a bastion of 18th-century style, with a magnificent mahogany stairca…
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Greenwood Great House
This marvelous estate sits high on a hill 11km east of Ironhshore. Construction began on the two-story, stone-and-timber structure in 1780 by the Honorable Richard Barrett, whose family arrived in Jamaica in the 1660s and amassed a fortune from its sugar plantations. (Barrett was a cousin of the famous English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning.) In an unusual move for his times, Barrett educated his slaves. Unique among local plantation houses, Greenwood survived unscathed during the slave rebellion of Christmas 1831. The original library is still intact, as are oil paintings, Dresden china, a court jester’s chair and plentiful antiques, including a mantrap used for catc…
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Old Tavern Coffee Estate
About 1.5km southwest of the hamlet of Section and some 1200m above sea level, there’s a small, anonymous cottage that you would surely pass by if you didn’t know that its occupants, Alex and Dorothy Twyman, produce the best of the best of Blue Mountain coffee. Alex immigrated to Jamaica from England in 1958 and started growing coffee a decade later. Dorothy oversees the roasting, meticulously performing quality control by taste. The environmentally conscious Twymans keep their use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers to a bare minimum and compost all by-products before returning them to the soil. Although the Twymans’ coffee is widely acclaimed as the best on the …
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Sugar-Processing Factory
Frome lies at the heart of Jamaica’s foremost sugar estate, in the center of a rich alluvial plain. The area is dominated by the Frome sugar-processing factory, on the B9 north of Savanna-la-Mar and south of the town of Grange Hill. Constructed in 1938, the factory became the setting for a violent nationwide labor dispute. During the Depression of the 1930s many small factories were bought out by the West Indies Sugar Company. Unemployed workers from all over the island converged here seeking work. Although workers were promised a dollar a day, the men who were hired received only 15 cents a day and women only 10 cents. Workers went on strike for higher pay, passions ra…
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Headquarters House
This trim little townhouse-turned-museum is one block north and two east of North Pde. The brick-and-timber house was originally known as Hibbert House, named after Thomas Hibbert, reportedly one of four members of the Assembly who in 1755 engaged in a bet to build the finest house and thereby win the attention of a much-sought-after beauty. It seems he lost the bet. In 1872, when the capital was moved from Spanish Town to Kingston, the house became the seat of the Jamaican legislature and remained so until 1960, when Gordon House was built across the street. Since 1983, Headquarters House has hosted the Jamaican National Heritage Trust, which has its offices in the forme…
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Font Hill Beach Park & Wildlife Sanctuary
Although this wildlife reserve and beach park, on almost 1300 hectares, east of Scott’s Cove, is incongruously owned by the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica, it has not tarnished its natural beauty…after realizing the oil it initially sought offshore didn’t exist. The sanctuary, which you can only visit accompanied by a guide, has scrubby acacia, logwood thickets and, closer to the shore, a maze of connected lagoons and swamps with a population of a couple of hundred crocodiles. The birding is fabulous, highlighted by a flock of bald plate pigeons as well as assorted black-billed whistling ducks, jacanas, herons and pelicans. Two golden-sand beaches (connected by a …
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Cueva de Los Portales
During the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara transferred the headquarters of the Western Army to this rather spectacular cave, 11km west of Parque La Güira and 16km north of Entronque de Herradura on the Carretera Central. The cave is set in a beautiful remote area among steep-sided vine-covered mogotes and was declared a national monument in the 1980s. A small outdoor museum contains a few of Che’s roughshod artifacts including his bed and the table where he played chess (while the rest of the world stood at the brink of nuclear Armageddon). Three other caves called El Espejo, El Salvador and Cueva Oscura are up on the hillside. This area is e…
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Jardín Botánico Nacional
The lush grounds of the Jardín Botánico Nacional span 2 sq km and include vast areas devoted to aquatic plants, orchids, bromeliads, ferns, endemic plants, palm trees, a Japanese garden and much more. Great care is taken to keep the grounds spotless and the plants well tended, and it’s easy to forget you’re in the middle of a city of over two million people. In fact, birders can contact Tody Tours for an expert eye on the many species found here. The garden hosts a variety of events, including an orchid exhibition and competition in March and a bonsai exhibition in April. The on-site Ecological Museum exhibits and explains the major ecosystems found in the DR, inclu…
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Island Village
Since its 2002 opening, this self-contained entertainment park, at the junction of Main St and DaCosta Dr, has changed the face of Ocho Rios. The 2-hectare development, brainchild of resort and media visionary Chris Blackwell, claims to resemble a ‘Jamaican coastal village.’ It doesn’t. Quibbles aside, you will find a peaceful beach, upscale craft shops, a cinema, Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville and Blue Runnings (both with bars and restaurants), a video-casino, Reggae Xplosion and a village green and amphitheater for live performances. The fences around the place reveal that this is not a public space, but rather a kind of daycare center for skittish, newly arrived cruise…
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Loma de San Juan
Future American president Teddy Roosevelt forged his reputation on Loma de San Juan where, flanked by the immortal rough-riders, he supposedly led a fearless cavalry charge against the Spanish to seal a famous US victory. In reality, it is doubtful that Roosevelt even mounted his horse in Santiago, while the purportedly clueless Spanish garrison – outnumbered 10 to one – managed to hold off more than 6000 American troops for 24 hours. Protected on pleasantly manicured grounds adjacent to the modern-day Motel San Juan, the Loma deSan Juan marks the spot of the Spanish-Cuban-American War’s only land battle, which took place on July 1, 1898. Cannons, trenches and numerou…
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YS Falls
Many rate this series of eight cascades, hemmed in by limestone cliffs and surrounded by forest, as being the most beautiful in all of Jamaica. The cascades fall 36m from top to bottom, separated by cool pools perfect for swimming. The falls take their name from the original landowners, ranchers John Yates and Richard Scott. Water-lovers can float down a bamboo-shaded stretch of river on inner tubes for US$6, while the more adventurous can take a canopy zip line for US$30. A tractor-drawn jitney takes visitors to the cascades, where you’ll find picnic grounds, a tree house and a rope swing over the pools. Be careful! The eddies are strong, especially after rains when t…
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Reach Falls
This peaceful spot is surrounded by virgin rain forest, and features a series of cascades tumbling over limestone tiers from one hollowed, jade-colored pool to another. Unfortunately Jamaica’s UDC took over the falls and while the ensuing clean-up makes it more tourist-friendly than before, the prices are prohibitive for the community and the guides are not the locals who used to earn their living from tours. At last visit the Mandingo Cave, the crown jewel of the falls, was off limits while it got the clean-up treatment from the UDC. To get here, you can catch any of the minibuses and route taxis that run between Kingston and Port Antonio via Morant Bay; get off in…
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Appleton Rum Factory
You can smell the yeasty odor of molasses wafting from the Appleton sugar estate and rum factory, well before you reach it, 1km northeast of Maggotty in the middle of the Siloah Valley. This is the largest distillery in Jamaica and the oldest: the factory has been blending the famous Appleton brand of rums since 1749. It is owned by J Wray & Nephew, Jamaica’s largest rum producer. The 45-minute tour of the factory details how molasses is extracted from sugarcane, then fermented, distilled and aged to produce rum, which you can taste in the ‘John Wray Tavern.’ Several dozen varieties – including the lethal Overproof – are available for sampling, and the well-stocked gif…
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Tuff Gong Recording Studios
Tuff Gong Records – named for its founder, Bob ‘Tuff Gong’ Marley – is one of the Caribbean’s largest and most influential studios. Initially established on Orange St, the enterprise then took up residence at 56 Hope Rd at what is now the Bob Marley Museum before returning to downtown Kingston at its present site. Bob Marley’s early mixing board traveled with the studio and is still in use today as the studio continues to turn out hit records, not least of which are those by his son Ziggy, the studio’s current chief. It’s a commercial venture with a remastering plant and remixing studio, but visitors are welcome to a 45-minute tour provided you call first to mak…
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Corporación Piñones Se Integra
The Corporación Piñones Se Integra is a community based nonprofit organization that is involved in improving the facilities in Puerto Rico’s poorer barrios, particularly Loíza. Concurrently, they are working hard to keep the island’s traditional Afro-Caribbean culture alive. Headquartered in the Centro Cultural Ecoturístico de Piñones situated to the right of Rte 187 immediately after you cross the bridge at Boca de Cangrejos, the organization promotes some of Puerto Rico’s best bomba y plena performances at its on-site Café El Búho at 9pm on the second and last Friday of each month. You can also arrange traditional dancing and percussion lessons here (phone …
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Rancho La Guabina
A former Spanish farm spread over 1000 hectares of pasture, forest and wetlands, Rancho La Guabina is a jack of all trades and a master of at least one. You can partake in horseback riding here, go boating on a lake, enjoy a scrumptious Cuban barbecue, or even see a cockfight. The highlight for most, though, is the fantastic horse shows. The Rancho is a long-standing horse-breeding center that raises fine Pinto Cubano and Apaloosa horses, and mini-rodeo-style shows run on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10am to noon and from 4pm to 6pm. Agencies in Viñales and Pinar del Río run excursions here starting at CUC$29, or you can arrive on your own. It’s a great place to enjo…
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Monumento Ernesto Che Guevara
The site of many a Che ‘pilgrimage, ’ this monument, mausoleum & museum complex, 2km west of Parque Vidal via Rafael Tristá, is in a vast square guarded by a bronze statue of ‘El Che.’ The statue was erected in 1987 to mark the 20th anniversary of Guevara’s murder in Bolivia, and the sublime mausoleum below (entry from the rear) contains 38 stone-carved niches dedicated to the other guerillas killed in that failed revolutionary attempt. In 1997 the remains of 17 of them, including Guevara, were recovered from a secret mass grave in Bolivia and reburied in this memorial. Fidel Castro lit the eternal flame on October 17, 1997. The adjacent museum collects the details an…
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Green Grotto Caves
This impressive system of caves and tunnels, 3km east of Discovery Bay, extends for about 16km. The steps lead down into the impressive chambers, where statuesque dripstone formations are illuminated by floodlights. Pre-Columbian Arawaks left their artwork on the walls. Much later, the caves were used as a hideout by the Spanish during the English takeover of the island in 1655. Runaway slaves in the 18th century also took refuge here, and between the two world wars, the caves were used by smugglers running arms to Cuba. The highlight is Green Grotto, a glistening subterranean lake 36m down. The entrance fee includes fruit punch and a guided one-hour tour. Your guide will…
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