Do we understand the Caribbean islands?

The thing that seems to strike me when discussing the Caribbean with family and friends is the preconceived image that “once you’ve been to one, they’re basically the same” was that very sentence my mother quoted when comparing the Cayman Islands to St Lucia, more importantly, that she hasn’t been to a Caribbean island at all. 

I think the islands always seem to get bad press when fracas arise involving UK/US tourists, muggings and whatnot which 90% can be easily avoided when taking the usual precautions and the courtesy that you’re in another country as many of our visitors take their customs with them when they go there. Many Caribbean islands, albeit mostly English-speaking and part of the Commonwealth family have slightly more conservative views and a modest outlook on certain issues than we do in Britain. 

One island in particular, is Jamaica. I’m not going to defend the minority who do wrong to tourists, as the outright majority are upbeat and jolly people who want to show visitors the true Jamaica, and not some plastic ‘fly and flop’ 4-star beach resort on Negril Beach. People will respect you & appreciate it a whole great deal if you participate in homestays, stay in bed & breakfasts or locally run lodges, as the money goes straight into Jamaican pockets and not overseas companies that once promised ‘prosperity through tourism’ to the people with jobs, and then lined their own pockets whilst creating a host of westernized microcosms lining the beachfronts (many made private).

(All inclusives, almost fortified, give a sense of class distinction) 

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that you wouldn’t get this kind of degree of negativity on any of the other islands, because many have taken their own paths down the route of tourism, adding that many islands that haven’t partaken in mass tourism are funnily enough safer than our United Kingdom. Unlike Jamaica, Anguilla, an island in the northern portion of the Caribbean has effectively 99% local and/or family run accommodations with a more stiff upper lip than the historically African isle of Jamaica, a different topography and totally different mindset. 

The impression people get from the islands is that because of their close proximity to one another that they’re going to be little replicas of one another, and this mindset that we’ve attained is exactly because of the Jamaican example: Fly to an island, transferred to your beachside hotel/resort for a week or so and just fly back again, without really seeing anything else. I mean Christ, going to the different islands and hearing someone talk perfect English like we’re not even outside the UK is going to be a bit monotonous, seeing beach for the duration of a stay barring the odd coach-load excursion.

(Seven Mile Beach is a sought-after beachfront)  

No country is the same, and certainly no regions of a certain country are the same. I remember the first time I went to mainland Spain, after going to the Balearics and Canaries; you’d think driving from Santander to San Sebastian would be just same old semi-arid landscape with some decent beaches? Well you can tell by the way I wrote that last sentence that it’s certainly not the case.

(The verdant hills of the Basque Country, Northern Spain)

Places are different, for good or for worse. The Caymans, a British Overseas Territory, doesn’t seem overly British with its bursting traffic and duty-free shops huddled in close proximity to the cruise ports, in comparison to fellow BOT, Anguilla, with clapboard houses and live music jams. The idea that Guadeloupe is the same as Cuba is, well, preposterous. 

You may deplore the mainstream Caribbean as a nasty package holiday trap full of over-jovial Americans and classic Brits Abroad, but each one of those islands from Trinidad to the Turks’ have their own identities. I suppose in the case of my mother, you’ve got to see it to believe it.
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