Caribbean Salaries

Blue Mountain Peak rises to a little over 7,400 feet, and the slopes beneath it are cool and wet enough to slow a coffee cherry down as it ripens. Only beans grown inside a defined altitude band may be sold under the Blue Mountain name, which is most of the reason the price is what it is. The same mountains are where Kingston gets its water.

The red soil across the middle of the island is bauxite, and mining it has been a serious industry since the early 1950s. For decades it was Jamaica's largest export earner, and the refineries that turn it into alumina are still among the biggest industrial employers outside Kingston. Tourism has since overtaken it, but several towns were built on this.

Port Royal was the busiest port in the English-speaking Caribbean until an earthquake in 1692 dropped most of it into the harbour in a few minutes. Survivors crossed the water and founded Kingston on the flats opposite. The sunken town is still down there, largely undisturbed, and is one of the best preserved underwater archaeological sites anywhere.