region: Central America & Caribbean

Crypts of the Diseased

Missing from many tourist maps, Chacarita Cemetery is Argentina’s largest graveyard and the stomping ground for the ghosts of yellow fever victims who have escaped from their derelict graves. Struck with the mosquito borne epidemic in 1871, up to 25,000 Argentines died with blood weeping from their eyes and mouths as they vomited bloody bile.

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The posh La Recoleta Cemetery refused infected bodies, so the city commissioned Chacarita as a place to bury thousands of unfortunate porteños (locals). So many bodies were packed into the earth that the authorities built a train line just to transport the dead. Tiptoe past cracked graves, peer into vandalised mausoleums and slather on high DEET bug spray to keep those deadly mozzies at bay.

Slow Road Through Cuba

Blue and red lights flash in the rear-view mirror. On closer inspection, it’s apparent they belong to a police motorbike, one that’s pursuing us like we’re driving the getaway car used during some audacious bank heist. With the wail of a siren, we pull over and I’m ordered out of the car.

The cop is dressed in a tight navy-blue uniform let down badly by a sagging paunch. He peppers me with rapid-fire questions.

My Spanish – far from fluent – simply can’t keep pace. If I’d been drinking rum, things might be different. Irrespective of the language being spoken, hard liquor transforms me into a gifted conversationalist. Sadly, however, I’m completely sober.

“Sobornar,” grunts the cop from beneath an immaculately trimmed moustache.

“Havana?” I venture hopefully. We back-and-forth like this for some time, until finally, exasperated, he waves me away in disgust, squeaking back to his bike in knee-high leather boots.

Back on the road I fumble for my dog-eared phrase book. ‘Sobornar’ means bribe.

Two old-timers serenade us from beneath the bandstand in Parque José Martí, Cienfuegos.
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School kids run alongside an old car in a Trinidad side street.
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We’re still laughing as we motor down the highway, swerving past cows, lunar-sized potholes and 1950s station wagons belching plumes of black smoke. Our stay in Cuba is only a few days old, but so far it’s all been a bit like this. Thanks to the legacy of revolutionary socialist politics spearheaded by Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara some 60 years ago, this is a country caught in a bizarre time warp. There is precious little internet, limited infrastructure and a currency system that rivals Einstein’s theory of general relativity in its complexity. As a result, many travellers opt to be bussed around on mindless package tours, but, along with a close friend, my wife and I have decided to rent a shitbox car and embark on a road trip from Havana to Trinidad. First stop: Cienfuegos.

It’s dusk when we arrive. We’ve booked into a casa particular – the Cuban equivalent of a B&B – but our email confirmation never arrived. This is not an uncommon occurrence in Cuba. Thankfully, owner Lorayne Sánchez, a beaming lady with an impressive afro, has enough connections to ensure sleeping on the street won’t be necessary.

A few blocks away, an elderly lady and her husband run Casa Anita. The front room is deliciously chintzy. Plates decorated with painted horses’ heads adorn a mantelpiece cluttered with ceramic pigs, doilies and creepy-looking clowns. There are rocking chairs, stuffed toys and, propped against the wall, a lime-green bike. It’s like a Stephen King nightmare meets the set of The Golden Girls.

On Sánchez’s recommendation, we dine at Pita Gorla, a family-run restaurant on the outskirts of town. Two men out front chop a shoulder of roasted pork, making ordering refreshingly straightforward. Massive portions are served with beans and rice, shredded cabbage, deep-fried plantain and red wine that is, in fact, port. The restaurant staff – at first clearly anxious we might be foreign prima donnas – seem to relax as we chow down, and frequently hover around our table to chat.

Literally translating to ‘one hundred fires’, Cienfuegos was founded in 1819 by pioneering French immigrants from Bordeaux and Louisiana. Its glory days, however, came in the 1850s with the arrival of a railway and the subsequent boom in the sugarcane trade. Suddenly flush with cash, local merchants pumped money into construction and the resulting neoclassical architecture, which helped gain the city a World Heritage listing in 2005, remains to this day.

Beachside in Trinidad: the perfect spot for a snorkel break.
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We’re here during wet season and the sky has once again turned the colour of ash. Horses pulling carts clop down streets slick with rain. Vintage cars that are slowly being devoured by rust flank footpaths. On a Saturday afternoon, strolling the well-ordered city centre, we notice bars filled with men drinking beer and watching baseball on television.

In Parque José Martí, the town’s main square, two old men sit beneath a glorieta (bandstand), taking shelter from the weather. One wears a flat cap and plays guitar, the other clutches a walking cane. Unexpectedly, they serenade us with a song about the revolutionary days of Che Guevara. It’s a moving moment that conjures memories of Buena Vista Social Club.

As a farewell to Cienfuegos, Sánchez invites us to dinner at Hostal Casa Azul. Her brother, known simply as ‘The Pope’, is preparing fresh lobster. Most casa particulares will ask for your dinner request in the morning, but the majority also gladly cook anything you buy from local street vendors or the market.

“I love Cuba,” says Sánchez while we sit at the kitchen table and plough steadily through a bottle of rum. “I would always come back here, but I wish we could travel.”

During the trip, this will become a common conversational theme. Education and health care are free here, but most Cubans only earn an average of between US$15 and $25 a month, essentially making them prisoners on their own island, as beautiful as it may be. The night ends in a haze and laughter as The Pope and I pose for photos with giant cigars. He gives me one to keep as a parting gift.

Back on the road, we trundle sheepishly past ubiquitous hitchhikers, a salsa CD picked up from a bar in Havana providing the soundtrack. Our car, not unlike the one driven by Bob Sala in the film adaptation of The Rum Diary, is barely large enough to accommodate the three of us and our backpacks, never mind any additional passengers.

Lush plantations flank either side of the crater-ridden ‘freeway’. We pass through villages where pensioners sit on porches and pigs are tied to trees in front yards. Farmers in cowboy hats drive tractors with thatched roofs. Men in ragged singlets hold pineapples aloft for sale on the roadside. Vintage Buicks are crammed with entire families sitting on one another’s laps.

Although Trinidad is just 80 kilometres from Cienfuegos, it takes several hours to get there. Built on sugar fortunes and slavery, the Spanish colonial jewel is characterised by undulating cobbled streets bordered by peeling pink, pistachio and other pastel-hued houses.

A man and mule wander the streets of Trinidad in the early morning.
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View of Trinidad and the Museo Histórico Municipal bell tower.
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From the central Museo Histórico Municipal we learn of the town’s history – pirates and unscrupulous sugar kingpins make for an intriguingly dark narrative during the guided tour – before climbing the rickety wooden staircase of the adjoining bell tower for panoramic views. The streets are cluttered with art galleries and hole-in-the-wall restaurants. At night, live bands perform in the cobbled courtyards of back-lane bars.

Trinidad’s dreamy time-warp feel has undoubtedly contributed to its appeal with tourists – far more so than Cienfuegos’s – but so has its location on the southern coastline. Just a 20-minute drive from the city, white sand beaches are punctuated only by the occasional beach shack or leather-faced old-timer renting snorkelling gear to use in the pristine waters.

Rather than retrace our steps, we head back to Havana via Santa Clara, a town known mainly for its bombastic Che Guevara monuments and revolutionary significance. At Monumento a la Toma del Tren Blindado, a smattering of train freight carriages marks the spot where, in 1958, Guevara and a ramshackle band of rifle-toting revolutionaries, using little more than a few homemade Molotov cocktails and a bulldozer, derailed an armoured train. The 90-minute battle was pivotal in Cuba’s history, effectively ending the rule of the Batista dictatorship and installing Fidel Castro, who was the prime minister, then president, for the next five decades. A short drive east, the Che Guevara Mausoleum houses the remains of the executed revolutionary and provides the detailed backstory of Cuba’s often-confusing socialist history.

Back in Havana, wave after wave of seawater smashes against the Malecón, the iconic waterfront esplanade spanning the coastline. As we venture further afield, the crumbling elegance of the city takes on a new perspective. Many of the buildings here are coming apart at the seams, but that really is an inherent part of the charm.

Cuba appears to have remained untouched by the passage of time. Sure there are cheesy Hemingway bars (the writer lived outside Havana for 20 years) and tacky package-deal resorts, but if you venture beyond the tourist traps, the rewards come in the most unexpected forms.

Our final night and another downpour sees us seeking refuge in a packed corner bar somewhere in the Old Town. In the pelting rain, the shutters have been rolled down, forcing what feels like an impromptu lock-in. In the corner, a band strikes up a tune, and with people hopping from bar stools to salsa to the rhythmic beat, the room soon becomes a blur of gyrating limbs. Ordering a generous pour of rum, I raise my glass to the scene. It seems a fitting end to a trip where unforgettable encounters lurked around every corner.

The Coconut Banger’s Ball

Imagine I’m a tiny painter and I live inside your brain. I’ve placed a pochade box on the bulge in your frontal lobe and set up my easel against your hypothalamus. With my tiny brush I paint puffy clouds of paradise, ultra-chromatic ocean waves and sandy beaches onto your olfactory cortex, so you can smell the sea while you stare blankly at your computer screen for eight hours a day. It’s my duty to transport you to cerebral Eden while you’re gripped by the maddening mundanity of the everyday. You rely on me to take you to faraway places, but now and then the fantasies I brush into existence are so inspiring they have you dusting off the pages of your old high school atlas in a desperate attempt to transform the ethereal into something less fleeting.

As you open the passage to geographic bliss, I splash coconut water onto your Wernicke’s area and you flip to the Caribbean islands. A dab of green for untrammelled jungle and splashes of sapphire for the ocean unexplored, and soon you’re folding over page after page, past the everyday islands and into the uncommon Caribbean, onto the paradises of the Mosquito Coast, where the atlas shows no roads, no cities and no limits to what you may experience. I’ve painted you a picture of Nicaragua’s Corn Islands, one of the Caribbean’s best-kept secrets, and a destination even more remarkable than imagination itself.

The magnificent sea view from your private oasis at Yemaya, Little Corn Island. Image: Flash Parker
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Adrenaline heightens each of your senses as your eight-seater twin prop buzzes like a mosquito over the sandy mound of Big Corn Island, some 70 kilometres removed from mainland Nicaragua. Not long ago, the Corn Islands hardly registered as a blip on the tourist radar. One flight per day landed on the grassy runway, while intrepid backpackers and the hippie set tied their luck to cargo ships on the gruelling 16-hour journey from Bluefields. Rustic beach huts housed most of the beds, while extended services were limited, if not non-existent. Yet word of mouth has transformed Big Corn into a checklist destination, the sort of place you want to brag about to your friends, no matter how badly you want to keep the secret to yourself. Today, the Corn Islands boast a few upmarket accommodation options, but the sense of the unexplored remains.

As your plane descends, a vision of stark white sand takes shape in your cerebellum, and knocks you off your feet. As you slip into a well-worn hammock on Picnic Beach, one of the longest, widest stretches of sand you’ll encounter in the Caribbean, you realise this is the island escape you’ve envisioned all your life. The pomp and circumstance associated with top-of-mind destinations is non-existent here, which contributes to an irresistible sense of charm and peace. Wide-smiling locals provide free haircuts to coconuts along the beach, happy to share their spoils with you. Young men patch and paint fishing boats near the harbour, keen to take the adventurous out onto the ocean, while groups of school children, most of whom have never left the island, quiz you on baseball stats and pop songs, interrupted by the occasional intrusion of a nervous lizard. It’s all so very Paul Theroux.

Picnic Beach is buttressed by the Arenas Beach Hotel, which has rows of white cabanas and a shipwreck-cum-beach bar on the sand. Rum libations begin at $2.50, while big bottles of beer cost about the same. The hotel itself, set back from the beach just across the road, features rustic bungalows with wide porches and deep hammocks, and simple rooms and suites flecked with Caribbean decor. No one will blame you if you decide to stick a flag in the sand and claim a stretch of beach for king and country, although there’s plenty more to stimulate the senses on Big Corn. Don’t be surprised if, as the sun goes down and the stars come up, you’re invited to the Coconut Banger’s Ball on Picnic Beach. Here, locals and visitors come together, crack coconuts, pour out a little water, add a lot of rum, and salute their good fortune.

A young fisherman surveys the sea at the harbour on Big Corn Island. Image: Flash Parker
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Little Corn Island is home to a cluster of cheeky parrots, ever eager for a chat. Image: Flash Parker
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If I painted pastoral grace in your mind’s eye, it would move you along one of the island’s antediluvian donkey trails, all the way down to the rocky, windswept southern shore, where you can picnic on giant driftwood or snorkel over coral reefs barely concealed by the sea, while wandering Caribbean cows furrow their brows at the sight of your sun-splashed skin. On your way back, conquer Big Corn’s highest point at Mount Pleasant (40 metres above sea level), where you can wax lyrical over the nature of man’s relationship with earth while climbing over the Soul of the World monument. The sweeping panorama encompasses the whole of the island, what feels like half of the sea, and even Little Corn Island off in the distance. Southern Big Corn is home to the island’s two largest abodes – grand chateaux belonging to former lobster barons, built with impossible angles and imposing colonnades, and with grand gardens rolling to the sea. Caretakers usually allow polite visitors to take a peek inside, while they serve lemonade on a silver tray and share their stories of their island paradise.

Pop into the offices of La Voz de Jesucristo’s 95.3FM, the island’s one-woman radio station, for a temporal lobe massage, then roll along toward the north shore, where you’ll find Island Bakery & Sweets, purveyor of Nicaragua’s finest coconut sweet bread (and other island treats). Pack a picnic basket for an afternoon on the sports field. Baseball is Nicaragua’s most popular sport and an institution on the Corn Islands. What seems like the entire population of Big Corn packs into the local stadium on Sundays, where a few dollars will get you a ticket to an entire day’s worth of games, some snacks and maybe even a few swings of the bat between innings.

Here, killing time is king, although more active pursuits also abound – paddle boarding and kayaking are popular, while the island’s diving experiences, especially at night, are a must.

When you think you’ve experienced about all the paradise you can handle, I draw long brushstrokes against your cerebrum, and point you towards Little Corn, paradise’s own vision of escape. There are no proper roads on Little Corn – your passage to the island is granted via ferry, which allows for ample time to soak up the spellbinding views. Backpacker joints and hippie hangouts are scattered across the northern shore between Goat Beach and the Peace & Love Farm, while the sole upmarket option, Yemaya Island Hideaway & Spa, features 16 eco-luxury cabanas offering crisp linen, rich mahogany furniture that would make Ron Swanson blush, elevated ceilings, rainforest showers, plenty of privacy and unbroken sea views. Yemaya’s luxe trappings spoil some of the castaway vibe, although wi-fi is warranted when it comes time to call in sick and extend the sojourn.

The hotel’s Exhale Studio features a secluded palm-shrouded yoga space and beachside exercise platform, while Yemaya Restaurant, with its open, airy vibe and panoramic views of the ocean and coral reefs, boasts a menu marked by local ingredients and Thai flair, thanks to the influence of Bangkok-born executive chef Dim Geefay, known for her work at Mezzanine Thai Restaurant & Martini Bar in Mexico’s Tulum. In fact, Yemaya’s green lobster curry will forever alter your image of Caribbean cuisine.

Keep your eyes peeled for Big Corn’s famed sweets and treats and cosy little bakeries scattered across the island. Image: Flash Parker
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The view on approach to Little Corn Island’s Yemaya Island Hideaway, on the ferry from Big Corn. Image: Flash Parker
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Here, killing time is king, although more active pursuits also abound – paddle boarding and kayaking are popular, while the island’s diving experiences, especially at night, are a must. There are some 20 dive sites located within close proximity of Little Corn, and all of them, with the exception of Blowing Rock, are single-tank dives. The White Holes, about five kilometres north of the island, features a trio of sandy patches marked by vibrant elkhorn coral that plays host to nurse sharks, eagle rays and turtles. Jake’s Place, near the southern lip of the island, has an array of finger-like coral and, occasionally, dolphins, while Blowing Rock, an islet 25 kilometres from shore, is home to a staggering array of fish, sharks, rays, eels, barracuda and more.

On land, walk the tightrope between the beach bar palms or trek west into the wild, where chatty green parrots are eager to enter into discourse about the landscape, point out their favorite perches and give directions to the Bottle House, the island’s one ‘cultural’ attraction. Operated by a man named Tall Boy (Little Corn’s head jewellery designer and the incumbent mayor), the Bottle House is a great place to check out locally made art and to cull little-known island history from the self-appointed social gatekeeper.

From here slip into Tranquilo Cafe – Little Corn’s only real nightlife option – to swap road stories over frosty Cerveza Cristal. Of course, coconuts are plentiful and liquid happiness is ubiquitous. By the time the stars light up the sky during your night on Little Corn, you’ll have all but forgotten about the tiny painter in your mind, and will know firsthand what paradise looks like.

Panama

In 1914, its famous canal brought the attention of the world to this country. One of the most difficult engineering works to be undertaken anywhere in the world, its 77 kilometres connected the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. For the first time ships could avoid the lengthy and hazardous route via Cape Horn, connecting the USA to countries in the Pacific region and fully integrating it into the world economy.

For the uninitiated this may seem like mere trivia, but the Panama Canal, with its proximity to Panama City, offers travellers a number of opportunities to explore the vast, manmade Gatún Lake, that, thanks to a series of locks, is 26 metres above sea level. The size of the locks themselves is awe-inspiring, but plenty of operators offer eco-tours that sail around the lake stopping at places like Monkey Island, with its sloths, toucans and, of course, capuchin and howler monkeys.

But it’s time to discover the rest of this Central American nation, with its Spanish ruins, fantastic surf breaks and salsa rhythms. It has eye-popping, often remote islands, like the pristine Guna Yala archipelago, where almost all of the residents on the 49 inhabited islands (there are 378 in all) are Guna Indians and facilities for travellers are basic. More popular is Coiba Island, off the Pacific Coast, where ancient forests are home to a number of endemic species. The island, the largest in Central America, is also a UNESCO World Heritage site.

For a real back-to-nature experience, travellers head to the Darién Province, in the country’s southeast. It’s the only place where the Pan-American Highway stops, unable to penetrate the dense forest. It takes a bit of planning, but journeys into Darién’s wilderness from either La Palma or Sambú will be rewarded with amazing wildlife experiences and the chance to interact with some of the indigenous communities who live along the river.

Jungle immersion at Canopy Tower

Wake to the calls of the rainforest. Set on a hill in a national park, Canopy Tower hotel offers guests an experience that’s nestled in nature, with the lights of Panama City glimmering in distant view. Built in 1965 by the US Air Force to house radars, this unusual structure has had numerous identity changes – including a stint as a control tower used to detect aircraft suspected of carrying drugs – before its transformation into the bird-watching haven it is today.

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Grab a set of binoculars and search the canopy for toucans, fruitcrows and hawks, and keep your eyes peeled for sloths and howler monkeys. During the day, kayak the Panama Canal, go fishing, hitch a ride on the Birdmobile to top ‘twitching’ spots or just chill in an indoor hammock.

Hotel Escondido

Shack up in a bungalow hemmed with succulents near the tiny coastal town of Puerto Escondido. To retain a beach-bum vibe, the architecture at Hotel Escondido (a member of Design Hotels) utilises traditional aspects – palapa roofs, wooden floorboards and regional artefacts – combined with modern touches. Each hut, for example, has a private plunge pool with sun deck and polished concrete bathroom.

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There’s a spa on site, and a restaurant serving simple Oaxacan cuisine. While it might be a challenge to drag yourself from the sunlounger, think about picnicking at the nearby lagoon, surfing the region’s legendary breaks or jumping on a horse and galloping movie-star-style along the shore. At night, play cards in the bar or sweat it out in the underground nightclub.

Jamaican Cliff Dive

Go jump off a cliff, if you dare. Need a shot of Dutch courage first? You’re in luck, because this popular Jamaican jumping spot is conveniently located alongside a cliff-top bar. Hang out at Rick’s Cafe in Negril while you steel your nerves – just don’t ask for a drink “on the rocks” unless you want to tempt fate…

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Step onto the highest jumping point to encouraging cheers and pin-drop 35 metres into the warm, albeit splintering, embrace of the Caribbean Sea. Feeling rather proud of yourself? Now watch how the locals do it, as they climb high into the branches of a tree on the cliff’s edge and slip into the water headfirst with the grace of an Olympic platform diver.

Jamaica

Beaches, rum punch and Bob (Marley, of course)… Sure, those are some of the best-known aspects of Jamaica’s laidback personality, but there is so much more to this vivid island nation in the Caribbean Sea. Chances are you may never have seen a landscape quite so verdant as that covering the mist-laced mountains of Jamaica’s interior. Serious hikers can get a close-up on the trek to Blue Mountain Peak, which rises to 2150 metres above sea level and, on a clear day, affords views of Cuba, 150 kilometres to the north. Spelunkers, meanwhile, can take to the hot, humid conditions of the Cockpit Country, where limestone in the soil has created the perfect geological storm for an underground system of rivers and caves. For the amateur adventurer, a trek to Reach Falls – surrounded by rainforest and with tiers of tumbling water – should be on the itinerary.

The beach, though, is one of the obvious attractions of any tropical island and Jamaica doesn’t disappoint. Unless you simply want to flop and drop for a few days, it’s best to avoid the northwest coastline between Negril and Ocho Rios. It’s not that the stretches of sand here are horrible, but this is the land of the all-inclusive resort. (It’s also where you’ll find the majority of dive outfits if that’s what you’re after.) Instead head to the south coast, where the beaches are the haunt of locals, and a rural lifestyle, to some extent, still exists. Top marks go to Treasure Beach, which, in fact, is made of four coves and villages and offers plenty of deserted spots to spread out your towel and go snorkelling in tranquil waters. Join the locals for a game of cricket, check out the burgeoning arts scene or kick back at a beachside restaurant scoffing cold beer and jerk chicken.

When the quiet life starts to become too, well, quiet, head back to Kingston. The island’s capital is cool and cultural. Spend some time checking out the National Gallery, Bob Marley Museum and a Jamaican music history tour, but save some energy for after dark. See if Usain Bolt is in the house at Tracks & Records, the sports bar he owns. If it’s Wednesday, head out to Stone Love HQ for one of the town’s biggest sound system parties, Wedi Wedi Wednesday. Check out the open mike night at Jamnesia Surf Camp on Saturday – you might just see reggae’s next big thing. Just remember, nothing here starts early and you need to be prepared to party well into the wee smalls.

Belize Adventure Week

Kayak through villages and navigate caverns lit only by your headlamp, then explore ancient Mayan ruins and clamber through tropical jungle to the song of howler monkeys and squawking macaws. On your Belize Adventure Week, you’ll do all this and more, like examining shaman offerings in the Che Chem Ha Mayan cave – a ceremonial centre used for blood-letting rituals – then taking a boat to Long Caye, a private Caribbean island.

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Continuing with the aquatic them, you’ll snorkel and dive through reefs before testing your windsurfing skills. Finish off they day by fishing for your dinner and retiring to your beachside cabana, where the sounds of the sea will lull you to sleep.

Almonds and Corals Hotel

Considered one of the most stunning spots in Costa Rica, Gandoca Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge boasts more allure than just powder-white sand. On one side of its beaches you’ll find wetlands and lush rainforest, while the other side borders the Caribbean Sea, with its thriving coral reefs, manatees and dolphins. Scattered through the forest are 24 tents raised on wooden platforms. Walkways wind through the trees – look for howler monkeys, sloths and tapirs – and lead down to the beach.

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During the day, book a massage at the Jungle Spa Pavilion or choose from a range of excursions offered nearby, including horse riding, canopy zip-lining, kayaking and diving. If the company of nature isn’t entertaining enough, you can relax in your personal hammock and hot tub.