Haiti Offers Beaches & Excursions

Michelle Martelli - the President of Haiti who was elected in 2011 - said that this Caribbean nation will make all efforts to revive and develop the tourism industry. Tourist industry will focus on two main areas: the beach and excursion kinds of leisure.

Unlike other Caribbean countries that have relied on massive hotel complexes, Haiti plans to build small hotels. Tours will focus not only on archaeological heritage, and culture. Thus, the religion of voodoo originated here, and this spiritual aspect of the island's most interested in its guests.

However, as emphasized in the Ministry of Tourism, voodoo - it's more than a religion. In Haiti, it's a lifestyle; aspects of voodoo are reflected in everything: in dance and in music, cuisine and cinema, painting and literature.

Haiti is annually visited by about 400 thousand people. In addition, now every year on the resort Labadee, cruise ships leased by cruise company Royal Caribbean, are arriving at its liners nearly 600 thousand tourists.

Haiti promises its guests a safe holiday. On the tour operators have already signed an agreement to meet travellers at the airport and transportation by bus to the hotel booked.

"Black Caribs" of St.Vincent and the Grenadines

A member of a people of mixed Carib and African ancestry living along the Caribbean coast of Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, and Nicaragua. The Garifuna were deported to the area in the late 18th century after their defeat by the British on the island of St. Vincent, where shipwrecked and escaped African slaves had intermarried with the indigenous Carib population beginning in the early 17th century.

St.Vincent and the Grenadines today has a mixed population which can be clearly seen in the picture below. There are individuals of African, Asian, European and Native American heritage, and many have multiple ancestries. However, before the coming of the Europeans and the other groups, St.Vincent was settled by the Ciboney and then the Caribs, as well as, subsequently, the “Black” Caribs (known as the Garifunas). The descendants of these peoples live today on the Windward coast of St.Vincent (from Sandy Bay to Fancy) and at Greiggs. The island today has very few pure Caribs, with most having intermarried with other groups, primarily, the descendant of the Africans who make up the majority of the population.

A new group of African and Carib heritage developed and became known as the "Black Caribs" or “Garifuna” as the subsequently named themselves—the word "Garifuna" means "cassava eating people." Eventually the Garifuna outnumbered the original inhabitants, the "Yellow Caribs." The Garifuna’s population growth created political tensions with the outnumbered “Yellow Caribs” and so that at one point the Yellow Caribs even negotiated with French wanderers to settle on the islands in 1719—hoping to shift power away from the Black Caribs.