Montego Bay

Montego Bay is Jamaica's second city and its front door: the airport where most of the island's visitors land, the cruise pier, the resort coast that runs east from the bay — and, in the middle of it, a beach founded by a doctor. Doctor's Cave opened in 1906 when a physician gave the cove to the town and an English osteopath declared its water curative; the world came to be cured, and MoBay grew around them. Behind the Hip Strip of Gloucester Avenue lies a real town: Sam Sharpe Square, named for the preacher who led the Christmas Rebellion of 1831 that hastened emancipation, and the market streets that feed it.

The traveller swims Doctor's Cave in the morning, when the water earns its reputation; walks the Strip and then downtown to Sam Sharpe Square and the Cage; drives east to Rose Hall, the great house with its ghost story, and on to Falmouth for the bamboo rafts of the Martha Brae and, after dark, the Luminous Lagoon that glows when the oars stir it; eats jerk at Scotchies under a zinc roof; and, with a day either way, goes west to Negril's seven miles or east to Ocho Rios and the climb of Dunn's River Falls — Jamaica's north coast in one arc.

The Guide's honesty: MoBay hustles — the Strip has its share of vendors and offers, and a cheerful, firm 'no thanks, respect' works better than silence —; use the licensed red-plate taxis and agree the fare, or the JUTA vans the hotels call; downtown is a working town, best by day and with a local's word about which streets; the resort coast is easy and a little sealed, and the island begins where the buses do; and the music, the food and the welcome, when it comes, are exactly as warm as the songs promised.