Favourite Clicks

Some of our favourite websites have been upgraded or have changed their addresses in recent months. Michael Goodwin gives the scoop on some essential Caribbean resources

In recent months, some of our all-time favourite Caribbean websites have expanded, updated, and improved — and some have changed their addresses. Here’s a selection, plus a few new favourites to go with the old ones.

 

Caribbean Ecotourism List

(www.kiskeya-alternative.org/cangonet/)

If you’d rather watch a turtle climbing up the beach than a thousand young women wining in bikinis, click here for access to a fascinating electronic forum devoted to passionate discussions of Caribbean ecotourism issues (including sustainable, alternative tourism, and community/social, cultural, rural, agricultural tourism). Posts are welcome in French, Spanish, and English, and an excellent search engine allows you to scan through the archives looking for specific key words and topics.

 

Caribbean Hurricane Network

(http://stormcarib.com/)

Storm coming! And when it does, StormCARIB provides access to weather discussions and local reports on tropical systems threatening the Caribbean islands. Local hurricane correspondents, living on the islands, report on how it looks and feels around them. In addition, as an aid in locating family or friends on the islands in an emergency situation, you can post your plea for help on the bulletin board. In times of severe weather, you’ll be grateful for the Quick Hurricane Web Resource Navigator, which lets you locate the least-overloaded Webserver for scanning National Hurricane Center advisories and the latest satellite images. You can also find out how close the storm is, and how many hours you have left to prepare.

 

Wonderful World Of Calypso

(www.rootsofcalypso.com/index1.html)

George Maharaj’s popular Caribbean music site has just changed its address, giving us an excuse to list it again. Maharaj, a well-known Trinidadian music collector, lives in Toronto, but his site celebrates his love of all the musical art forms that have been invented and developed in Trinidad. It includes an extensive listing of Maharaj’s collection of calypso books, articles, videos, LPs and CDs (a great reference for anyone doing research in these areas), along with a “For Sale” section, a great set of links to other calypso websites around the world, and the results of a recent survey to identify the top calypsos of the 20th century.

 

International Jamerican Film and Music Festival

(ww.jamericanfilmfest.com/)

Scheduled to unreel November 20 to 24 in Mo’ Bay, this five-day film and music festival focuses on competitive screenings of full-length features, documentaries, shorts and music videos. Check here for festival passes, a submission form for your film or music video, applications for production workshops, and some great streaming dub and reggae that will make you think hard before you log off the site!

 

The Cuban Experience

(http://library.thinkquest.org/18355/)

Information on Cuba can be hard to come by, even on the Web, which is why this extraordinarily detailed and scholarly Thinkquest site is such a find. It’s a comprehensive guide to Cuba, including culture, history, politics, travel opportunities (including US travel restrictions), and all the people, places and events that make the island so unique. It contains hundreds of pages and scads of information: you’ll even find a simulation of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis in which you can play the part of John F. Kennedy, Fidel Castro, or Nikita Krushchev.

 

Health Information for Travellers to the Caribbean 

(www.cdc.gov/travel/caribbean.htm)

We don’t need to tell you that protecting the health of your family is more important than finding the perfect beach resort. Check this site (operated by the US Department of Health and Human Services) for potentially life-saving hints on everything from diarrhea (the number one illness in travellers) to malaria, dengue fever,  and more. You’ll find destination-specific recommendations, including required vaccinations, listed for virtually every Caribbean destination, as well as health hints for travelling on cruise ships, travelling with pets, and what to do after you reach home.

 

Homeview T&T

(www.homeviewtnt.com/)

This site provides a valuable service — streaming Internet access to live broadcasts from almost every single Trinidadian radio station, including 90.5 FM, WEFM (96.1), Masala World (101.1), 103 FM, and Ebony (104). The bad news is that you’ll have to pay nearly US$10 a month for the privilege of listening. True, there’s lots of amusing stuff on the site that you don’t have to pay for, including a handy list of Hindi words and some nice bits of dialect comedy and folklore, but there’s something bothersome about having to pay for radio feeds that are free down home.

 

BWIA

(www.bwee.com/)

If you’re planning a trip to Trinidad for Carnival 2003 (and considering how fast flights fill up in the Carnival season, it’s none too early to start thinking about it!), try BWIA’s splendid new website. BWIA is celebrating 62 years of dedicated service as the leading airline of the Caribbean, and in addition to all the usual online services you’d expect (ticketing, schedules, cargo information, vacation packages, duty-free specials, and online enrollment in the BWEE Miles programme) you’ll find a complete listing for the West Indies’ cricket itinerary!

 

Funding provided by the 11th EDF Regional Private Sector Development Programme Direct Support Grants Programme.
The views expressed on this website are those of the the authors and do not reflect those of the Direct Support Grants Programme.

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