Food, Music Wildlife Need 1 Welcome & Culture Discoveries & Nature Adventure to Know Travel Safety worldnomads.com Where Nomads Go Go Nomads Nomads Where Where around the islands. and taste your way a 400-year-old festival, whale sharks, dance at whale sharks, volcanoes, swim with beaches to explore beaches to explore Venture beyond the Venture CARIBBEAN 2 worldnomads.com World Nomads’ purpose is to challenge Contents you to harness your curiosity, be brave WELCOME WELCOME 3 enough to find your own journey, and to Getty Images / Galen Rowell Essential Caribbean 4 gain a richer understanding of yourself, Putting together this guide starts with defining exactly what the others, and the world. Caribbean is. Some would classify it as the islands and nations FOOD, MUSIC & CULTURE 6 surrounded by or bordering the Caribbean Sea. We chose a Tasting My Way Around the Caribbean 8 worldnomads.com broader definition, including places such as The Bahamas, Beyond Reggae: The that aren’t technically in the Caribbean, but share its culture Welcome Caribbean’s New Grooves 12 and character. Indo-Caribbean Culture However you demarcate it, the Caribbean can’t be easily in Trinidad and Tobago 16 summed up. With influences from around the world and Native Boat Regattas topography that ranges from frosty mountain peaks to dense Food, Music in The Bahamas 20 rainforest, it’s much more multifaceted than its picture-postcard Culture & 3 Museums Worth a Special Trip 22 reputation might suggest. We can’t possibly cover it all in a A Nomad’s Story: Meeting My handful of pages, and we aren’t going to try. Past at Bermuda Cup Match 26 Think of this guide as a series of windows into a Caribbean you Respect & Renewal: Curaçao’s Art 30 never knew existed – from Curaçao’s contemporary art scene, to Discoveries DISCOVERIES 32 an effervescent coral reef in Dominica, to a Hindu festival of lights Sint Maarten on a Shoestring 34 in Trinidad and Tobago. Saba, an Island Packed We’ve also included a useful Travel Safety Guide to help With Character(s) 36 you navigate the region safely and bravely. So, discover the Barbuda’s Road to Recovery 40 Caribbean, World Nomads style! & Nature& Wildlife WILDLIFE & NATURE 42 The Hidden Dominican Republic 44 St. Maarten Hog Heaven in Honduras 48 Virgin Islands Antigua & Barbuda ADVENTURE 52 Nevis Adventure Keeping the America’s Cup Spirit Montserrat Guadeloupe Alive on Sint Maarten 54 Frigate birds, Barbuda The Bahamas La Soufrière: Hiking Dominica St. Vincent’s Volcano 56 Turks & The Nature Island: 4 Eco- TRAVEL SAFETY 74 Caicos Martinique Cuba Adventures On Dominica 60 Know to Passports, Visas & Currency 75 Dominican St. Lucia Need Republic Plymouth, the Caribbean 10 Travel Safety Tips 76 Capital Closed to the Public 62 St. Vincent Travel Cons to Avoid 79 Barbados Jamaica Haiti Puerto Law & Crime 80 Rico NEED TO KNOW 66 Grenada Climate & Weather 67 Health & Hygiene 83 Honduras Travel Safety Responsible Travel 68 Essential Insurance Tips 84 Nicaragua Curaçao Sea Turtle Conservation Tips 70 Bonaire Getting Around 71 Our Contributors 86 Trinidad & Tobago Festival Calendar 72 Get a Quote 88 Panama 2 3 worldnomads.com SEEK EXPERIENCES Getty Images / Adam Filipowicz ESSENTIAL Welcome CARIBBEAN Don’t miss out on these one-of-a-kind destinations, Food, Music experiences, and adventures. Culture & Plant coral in Bonaire Discoveries Join revelers at Trinidad’s exuberant Holi festival Race America’s Cup Swim with whale sharks & Nature& Getty Images / Teacherdad48 in Honduras yachts in St. Maarten Wildlife Climb an active Enrique A Sanabria / Flickr volcano on St. Vincent Foden Getty Images / Stephanie Adventure Adventure Reef Renewal Foundation Bonaire / RRFB Renewal Reef Sample local specialties Learn to bomba dance everywhere in Puerto Rico Grandadam Harding / Sylvain Robert Friscione Getty Images / Rodrigo Watch a regatta of Know to hand-built boats in Need The Bahamas Getty Images / Derek Galon Travel Safety Explore a Rappel down modern-day a waterfall in Pompeii in Alexandre Lefebvre / Flickr Creative Commons Lefebvre Alexandre Getty Images / Michael Melford Dominica Getty Images / rustyl3599 Montserrat Minimalists / Flickr Creative Commons Venture 4 5 worldnomads.com Sandor Weisz / Flickr Creative Commons Sandor Weisz Welcome Food, Music & Culture & Discoveries & Nature& Wildlife Adventure Adventure Undisturbed by outsiders until the 15th century, the Caribbean has been indelibly marked by European to Know to colonists, the African slave Need FOOD, MUSIC trade, and the importation of migrant workers from Asia and Indonesia. There’s no denying the darkness of some parts of Travel Safety & CULTURE its history, but what’s emerged is a crossroads of cultures as rich, diverse, and vibrant as Bomba and drums anywhere on earth. 6 7 worldnomads.com SEEK EXPERIENCES Tasting My Way Flickr / Creative Commons Meng He Around the Caribbean Food here is as varied as the region itself, combining local Welcome produce, spices, and seafood with influences from around the world. Audrey Gillan visits three islands, discovering three very different food cultures. Food, Music & Culture & Barbados deftly fries fish and fires them onto buns, Through a window hatch at the front of topping each with salad. The fish is soft, a brightly painted wooden shack, Cuz sweet, and so moreish I get back in line hands me a fish cutter, his face breaking for seconds. into a giant smile. I’ve been waiting here, Eating out in Barbados can be expensive Discoveries near Pebbles Beach in Barbados, the – the west coast of the island is dotted easternmost island of the Lesser Antilles, with wallet-busting fine-dining restaurants for one of its most famous sandwiches – – but when you seek out the local fare, cutters – a salt-bread roll filled with fried you’ll find gems like Cuz’s. Food stalls and fish seasoned with Bajan spices. These vans serving hot lunches out of their back are typically allspice, onion powder, doors cluster in beach car parks and “pon & Nature& chilies, thyme, parsley, nutmeg, clove, de roadside”: fried chicken or baked fish, Wildlife and black pepper. accompanied by macaroni pie – known Castries Market, Cuz’s father, Cuz senior, began the as just “pie”; it’s made with long tubes of St. Lucia business almost seven decades ago, and macaroni, mixed with cheese, evaporated the family still sells around 500 cutters a milk, Bajan spices, and hot sauce, all of it day. Pointing to a stack of rolls, Cuz says, baked until crisp. These are cooked daily Adventure “When they’re done, I’m done; I pack up in homes across the island, loaded into a long queue at Uncle George Fish Net St. Lucia and go.” Inside, a radio blares and two silver chafing dishes, and driven out to Grill, where the eponymous Uncle George, There’s nutmeg and cinnamon, soursop, Improve your writing, large pans keep the oil sizzling as Cuz meet demand. tongs in one hand, spatula in the other, sugar apples, limes, plantains – even photography, Stop by the wet markets in Bridgetown, flips tuna, swordfish, lobster, shrimp, and cow’s milk in recycled glass bottles, and videos Oistins, or Speightstown to see the “dolphin” (mahi mahi). all piled on top of wooden stalls. It’s a with Create abundant varieties of fish caught not far Or take your own, self-guided local food Saturday morning at Castries Market in St. The stallholder Know to from shore: marlin, mahi mahi, and the tour by hopping on one of the souped-up Lucia, about 110mi (180km) northwest of Need ubiquitous flying fish, which shimmer when is trying to vans (ZR buses) that pump out reggae Barbados, and chef Craig Jones – a big, they swim in shoals and break the surface tempt the big, music and beep their horns at potential white, Welsh Rastafarian – and I are picking of the water. Upstairs at bustling Cheapside white, Welsh passengers on the sidewalk. Costing $1 US our way around large, muddy puddles vegetable market you’ll discover tiny, a ride, they’re an ideal way to skip from rum amidst a cacophony of cries and Creole hole-in-the-wall food stalls that fry doughy Rastafarian shop to rum shop, sipping rum punch while sales pitches. Travel Safety fish cakes made from salt fish, flour, herbs, cook: “Look at you try Barbados’ national dish: flying fish I point quizzically to a large root and spices. these dasheen, and cou cou (cornmeal and okra). vegetable, but before Jones can answer, On a Friday night, head to Oistin’s Friday In Barbados, “having a lime” is to party the stallholder is trying to tempt him: “Look Mangoes at Night Fish Fry for seafood, rum, beer, Ras, beautiful and have a good time, and zipping around at these dasheen, Ras, beautiful dasheen”. Castries Market Heather Cowper / Flickr Creative Commons dominoes, and dancing. There’s always dasheen”. on “reggae buses” is just that. I am still puzzled, so Jones – who has been 8 9 worldnomads.com SEEK EXPERIENCES On the tables at Sunshine’s restaurant Ocean Lab on Pinney’s Beach are bottles of Nevis Hot Craft Beer Ocean Lab Pepper Sauce. I discover they’re made by Llewellyn Clarke, an English chef who returned to his family’s Nevis roots to cook in a hotel, and set up a sideline making what I believe to be one of the finest hot Welcome Heather Cowper / Flickr Creative Commons sauces in the Caribbean. In his kitchen in Rawlins Village, known as the island’s breadbasket because of its abundance of fruit and fresh produce, the smell of sweet but punchy Scotch bonnet Food, Music chilis fills the air as he boils the fiery red Culture & peppers down with vinegar, salt, sugar, UNFORGETTABLE thyme and garlic.