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Top Around Blue Mountain Resources

The heavily forested Blue Mountains, tower above Kingston, but the pace of life in the small mountain communities there is much slower than the capital. Granted the status of a National Park, these mountains are the second tallest in the Caribbean after the Dominican Republic's Cordillera Central and, in the distance, they do appear a hazy shade of blue. You can walk the Blue Mountains, including the 7,400ft Blue Mountain peak, with guides arranged at the less formal Maya Lodge, close by. another great place to head for is higher up:Strawberry Hill, in Irish Town, is an elegant hotel with traditional architecture. You reach it from Papine;at this point the road passes into gorges and steep-sided valleys where fruit and vegetables are grown.

At Castleton, on the road to Annotto Bay on the north coast, botanical gardens dating from 1862 are laid out beside a river; here, guides will show you exotic flora, birds, butterflies ad the ingenious trapdoor spider. There are gardens at Cinchona, where quinine was once extracted from cinchona trees;other places worth visitng include the World's End Rum Distillery at Guava Ridge and the coffe factories at Mavis Bank, nearby and at Silver Hill. The Pine Grove Hotel is a good stop for refreshment.