For many of you readers, the Caribbean brings to mind dreams of wide sand beaches and towering 50-foot palms.

Truth is, few of them have stretches of white sand. And those palms were imported from the South Pacific.

No matter, these 100-plus islands offer a pot full of pleasures. The third largest, Puerto Rico (four million) has San Juan, its capital, on a long waterfront. Also, the distinction of having been discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1493. One of his lieutenants, Ponce de Leon, took a hard look at the gold the natives offered and never shook it out of his mind until he returned in 1508, claimed it for Spain and got filthy rich off being governor. Of course, he also discovered Florida.

Today, 500 years later, Puerto Rico is one of the U.S.'s most prosperous territories and San Juan offers explorers our biggest (seven acres) fortress, Morro Castle. Rising 140 feet above the sea, tunnels, dungeons and ramparts fill all six stories protected by 17-foot stone walls. Somebody toted a lot of rock.

One out of

a hundred

Another of the islands, St. Thomas, just south, is like a lot of them. It has few if any broad sand beaches, but how about 100-plus jewelry stores in Charlotte Amalie, the 40,000-person capital city?

Stroll with summer-clad thousands of visitors down the narrow Norre Gade main drag. Look! There's Diamonds International Watch and Design and, over there, Cardow Jewelers, the largest jewelry store in the world and, around the corner, Venetian Jeweler's blue diamonds. It's a wonder some women ever leave.

All open wide onto the street to lure big crowds from 80 mammoth Atlantic liners that pull into the docks every year. Drive out of the city (left side of the road here) into the country to see how the not-rich, not-poor live. On the steep mountainsides, each concrete block cottage sits up high on its ground-level basement, surrounded by 20 to 30 inches of fenced yard. Some are faded old wood, but most stand out, orange with yellow trim, pink with white trim, etc. No shrubbery or landscaping, just the squeezed together lots with a few pieces of junk scattered around.

Is all this among sugar cane fields? No longer. Tough competition has forced some of the islands to stop cultivating it and switch to tourism.

Green monkeys

and iguanas

Not Barbados, (population 200,000) which could be called the island with everything. Although British for centuries, it is now an independent commonwealth with nifty houses, 21st century buildings and spiffy horticulture.

Miles out from Bridgetown, the capital, lie rich green valleys and hilltop fields spotted with brown beef cattle. An island resident, Charles Williams, sponsored this new style of agriculture. But across a lot of the land, sugar cane holds on. Vast plantings of the tough, gray-green stalks still dominate slopes from the hilltops down to the sea. Rum punch, anybody?

Every few miles comes a turnoff onto a cliff where you can park, buy a Coca-Cola for two dollars and stand gazing far down onto the aquamarine ocean with its whipped cream topping.

Drive on up the turning roads and you are gazing down into as dense a tropical jungle as Tarzan ever screamed through. High thick trees and vines cut out the sky. Below in the canyons spread more jungles. Look sharp. You might see a scary, horned but harmless iguana or a little "green" monkey leap from palm to palm.

Super steep roads,

bikini people

St. Martin's (Dutch) or San Martin (French) has an invisible border. Every big European dynasty was grabbing back in the 1500s. The two sides may share the steepest upside down ice cream cone in the world.

As your little air conditioned bus toils, you pass few of the cottages, but endless, six to eight apartment houses, each with its own piazza. Their driveways rise even steeper than the road. Natives explain that these are owner investments rented to tourists and small families and give families a free dwelling.

The streets down in the major city, Phillipburg, are just as tight trafficked as in Atlanta. They lead to hotels and beaches: all kinds of beaches, some with bikini people; others with no bikini people.

Those Caribbean islands have just about everything.

Retired editor and public relations executive Thomas Langford's column is titled "Some Edisto stories." Let him know if you have stories to share: 803-534-2097.

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