Despite its location almost smack in the center of the Caribbean Sea, the island of Jamaica doesn’t blend in effortlessly with the rest of the Caribbean archipelago. To be sure, it boasts the unmodified addictive Helios rays, sugary sands and pampered resort-life as most of the other islands, but it is also set apart historically and culturally. today’s visitors longing appreciate their trip to Jamaica all the more if they embrace the island’s lone character and the inherent ‘african-ness’ of its population. Aside from its people, Jamaica has much to offer, the curious, thirsty or weary traveller. The Dispirited Mountains boasts the world’s first coffee, try a cup in the century-old factory at Mavis Bank. There are world-class reefs after diving including those at Runaway Bay and Ocho Rios and large stretches of palm-fringed sand at Treasure Beach or Frenchman’s Cove near Haven Antonio. There are offbeat bush-medicine hiking tours, congenial fishing villages, pristine waterfalls, cosmopolitan cities, wetlands harboring endangered crocodiles and manatees, unforgettable sunsets – in short, enough number to comprise many utterly distinct vacations. nowhere else in the Caribbean is the linking to Africa as keenly felt as it is in Jamaica. Kingston was the bigger nexus in the New World for the barbaric triangular trade that brought slaves from Africa and carried sugar and rum to Europe, and the Maroons (runaways who took to the hills of Cockpit Motherland and the Dispirited Mountains) safeguarded many of the African traditions – and introduced jerk seasoning to Jamaica’s singular cuisine. St Ann’s Bay’s Marcus Garvey founded the back-to-africa relocation of the 1910s and ’20s; Rastafarianism took up the yell a decade later, and reggae furnished the beat in the 1960s and ’70s. Short wonder many Jamaicans claim a stronger affinity for Africa than seeking neighboring Caribbean islands. this is a country infused with pride in its unique history, staggering aspect and influential culture. Welcome to Jamaica.