The easiest way of traveling into the past is to fly to Kingston, Jamaica, and drive north and east along jungly mountain roads to the town of Port Antonio, where - for better and for worse - it seems almost nothing has changed since the late 1960's.
It was here, in this lush land of reef-blocked beaches and palm-shrouded mountains, that movie stars and European royalty used to arrive by helicopter and by yacht to spend the winter months ensconced in their villas. Errol Flynn bought thousands of acres near Boston Bay, Queen Elizabeth once checked in to the Frenchman's Cove Resort, and Robin Moore reportedly wrote "The French Connection" at his house near the Blue Lagoon, the 200-foot-deep cerulean pool where a teenage Brooke Shields famously went skinny-dipping.
For almost 30 years, Port Antonio and the surrounding Portland Parish played host to famous names. But in 1988, soon after Tom Cruise juggled martini shakers for "Cocktail" at Dragon Bay, other, now infamous names began to arrive: first Gilbert, then Ivan and, most recently, Dennis in July 2005. All were hurricanes, and along with Portland's already copious rainfall, they wrecked the infrastructure that made a tourist economy possible.
You can find the full article here
No comments:
Post a Comment