Saint Ann, in the center of the north coast, is the largest parish in Jamaica and one of the most fertile, which earned it the nickname 'the garden of Jamaica' (Garden Parish). It was the setting of the first European contact with the island: Christopher Columbus landed in 1494 at present-day Discovery Bay —whose name celebrates that event— and on his fourth voyage was stranded for almost a year, between 1503 and 1504, in the Saint Ann's Bay area, the capital of the parish.
Nearby, Juan de Esquivel, the first Spanish governor, founded in 1509 the island's first permanent European settlement, Sevilla la Nueva (New Seville), the third capital established by Spain in the Americas. Abandoned around 1534 as unhealthy, the site preserves its ruins as an archaeological park (Seville Heritage Park), a testimony to the clash of Taíno, Spanish and African worlds.
Saint Ann has enormous weight in Jamaican identity: it's the birthplace of two universal figures. In Saint Ann's Bay was born in 1887 Marcus Garvey, a National Hero of Jamaica, Pan-Africanist leader and founder of the UNIA, whose preaching of pride and unity of the Black diaspora inspired movements all over the world and laid the spiritual foundations of Rastafari.
And in the village of Nine Mile, in the hills of the parish, was born on February 6, 1945, Bob Marley, the musician who took reggae to the whole planet. He lived there until the age of thirteen and today is buried in his mausoleum at the site, turned into a place of pilgrimage for admirers from all over the world. That two of the most influential Jamaicans in history were born in the same parish is no coincidence, but a symbol of its cultural strength.
The tourist heart of Saint Ann is Ocho Rios ('Ochi'), a former fishing village turned into a great cruise and resort hub. Its emblem is Dunn's River Falls, the most famous waterfall in Jamaica: a succession of drops and terraces about 180 meters long that descends over limestone rocks until it flows directly into the sea, and which visitors climb by scaling the rocks in a human chain.
Around it, the parish unfurls the Blue Hole (Irie Blue Hole) with its turquoise pools hidden in the jungle, the Dolphin Cove marine park, the Green Grotto Caves of Discovery Bay —a Taíno refuge and hideout in colonial times— and the quiet beaches of Runaway Bay, whose name ('bay of the runaways') evokes the slaves who fled and the last Spaniards who left the island for Cuba in 1655.
Besides its historical milestones, Saint Ann is today one of the main tourist destinations in Jamaica, combining history, beaches and adventure. Its fertile interior lands, dedicated to cattle raising and crops like Jamaican pimento (pimento) and coffee, keep alive its vocation as a 'garden'.
Between Columbus's landing, the first Spanish capital, the birthplace of Garvey and Marley and the Dunn's River waterfalls, few parishes condense so much history and so much appeal. Saint Ann is a synthesis of all Jamaica: indigenous and colonial past, African heritage, universal music and dazzling nature.