THREE things we did not know about the Caribbean:
- The Caribbean is home to the shortest runway in the world. The Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport (SAB) is on the former Netherlands Antilles island of Saba. The airport’s runway is just 1,312 feet, or 400 metres, long. That means Jamaican runner Usain Bolt could run the length of the runway in under 50 seconds!
- There are only two seasons: There are only really two seasons in this tropical region: dry and rainy (or wet). The Caribbean dry season runs from mid-December through to mid-April, and the wet season from mid-April through to mid-December.
- Most of the inhabitants of the Caribbean Islands are descendants of African slaves who were brought to the islands by European colonial powers to work on the sugar plantation. They stayed on the islands after slavery had ended.