(4 of 5)
¶ TRINIDAD. In this busy, commercial island off the coast of Venezuela, the brand-new, air-conditioned Trinidad Hilton, completed last summer, can count on traveling businessmen and conventions as well as tourists to keep its 261 rooms filled (rates: $20 to $37). Trinidad might be considered the Salzburg of the Caribbean—being the birthplace of calypso and the ubiquitous steel band. Its other claim to fame: the factory from which Angostura bitters sprays upon the civilized world.
¶ CURAÇAO. West and slightly north is the tidy, pastel-shaded Dutch island of Curaçao, which claims the world's second largest oil refinery. Here the tourists, most of them off cruise ships, bustle through town buying things, then are herded back on board to weigh anchor. Hotels and restaurateurs are hopefully expecting the cruise ships to begin two-and three-day layovers, at which time the food at at least one restaurant will veer from the ratatouille nicoise and péches cardinales to the plain meat and potatoes that are said to be what tourists want.
¶ JAMAICA. This, one of the most variegated islands in the Caribbean, and one of the most scenically spectacular in the world, has been an outpost of British culture for some 300 years, and its English tradition has paid off in the political sophistication and orderly ease with which the Jamaicans have taken to their present status as independent members of the British Commonwealth.
A range of resorts is strung along the 135-mile-long northern coastline. To the west, some eight miles from the Montego Bay airport, is famed Round Hill—less of a jet-set fairground than it was five years ago, but still a cosmopolitan cluster of airy shareholder houses around a crescent bathing cove that is carefully combed for spiky sea urchins and other subterranean surprises. If their owners are away, visitors may be able to rent the Henry Tiarkses' capacious "cottage" (British Press Lord Esmond Rothermere is currently in residence), or the William Paleys' swimming-pooled pavilion (where both President Kennedy and Princess Margaret have stayed). Or for $65 a day, a couple may have a spacious double bedroom with a balcony on the bay. Round Hill has the swinging crowd—society and show biz mixed with plainer folk who like going black tie twice a week for their dining and dancing.
The Montego Bay area has also other kinds of sport: fishing off the White House, golf at Tryall, a clublike community like Round Hill; tennis at the Racquet Club, and eating at Sunset Lodge.
At Ocho Rios, midway along the coast, the hotels tend toward a more Miamistyle opulence. And near Port Antonio at the island's eastern end, where the vegetation is lushly tropical from the rainfall trapped by the towering Blue Mountains, is the picturesque San San section, where the Aga Khan's Uncle Sadruddin has pitched a tent, along with Steel Baron Heinrich Thyssen and a collection of Swedish shipping moguls.