How to Find the Haunted Caribbean
By Sarah Greaves-Gabbadon
CJ Travel Editor
Halloween means our minds are turning to ghosts, goblins and all things ghoulish. Check out these spooky Caribbean spots – if you dare.
El Convento, Puerto Rico
Apparently not all dead nuns go to heaven; some reportedly still roam this Old San Juan hotel. The city cloister was formerly a Carmelite convent, established in the 1600s when widow Dona Ana de Lansos y Menendez de Valdez donated her house and land to the Catholic Church with the request that it be used for religious purposes. When the convent opened the still-bereft widow became its first mother superior, and centuries later guests say they hear Ana and her sisters walking the corridors, their vestments swishing as they go.
Rose Hall Great House, Jamaica
It seems that even death couldn’t stop Annie Palmer, the murderous mistress of Rose Hall estate, just outside Montego Bay. She’s famous for dispatching her husbands, the slaves she took as lovers, and even babies with ruthless efficiency and liberal use of black magic. She was killed by one of her slaves in 1831 but apparently the ritual that should have ensured that her malevolent spirit remained entombed was bungled, and her evil spirit endures. Take the tour today and you may hear babies crying, whispers in the dungeon or the sound of her footsteps rushing across the ballroom floor.
Eden Browne Estate, Nevis
Weddings are supposed to be happy occasions but back in the 18th century, Julia Huggins’ nuptials took a tragic turn when her husband-to-be and the best man (her brother) killed each other in a heated argument the night preceeding the ceremony. Today visitors to the sugar plantation just outside the capital, Charlestown, report hearing her ghost crying amid the ruins.
