Jacmel

Jacmel, a historic port on Haiti's southern coast, is the country's artistic and cultural heart, a charming, atmospheric town of faded grandeur. Its centre preserves elegant, if weathered, nineteenth-century mansions and warehouses in the ornate gingerbread and cast-iron style, along cobbled streets, recalling its prosperous coffee-trading past. Above all, Jacmel is famous as a centre of Haitian art and craft, its studios producing the vibrant, colourful papier-mâché masks and figures for which it is renowned, and it hosts one of the most spectacular and creative Carnivals in the Caribbean, a riot of extraordinary masks and costumes, making it a place of deep creative energy.

History

The area was Taíno territory in the Xaragua chiefdom, and the French renamed its old name, Yaquimel, as Jacmel when the Compagnie de Saint-Domingue founded the town in 1698 as the capital of the south-east of the colony. Built to boost sugar production, it soon became a coffee trading centre; after a fire in 1896 destroyed most of the town, it was rebuilt with prefabricated cast-iron pillars and balconies shipped from France, and the merchants' mansions of that time still stand, said to have influenced houses in New Orleans (Wikipedia, Jacmel).

What's there

• The gingerbread architecture - the faded ornate mansions and streets.
• The papier-mâché craft - the vibrant masks and figures.
• Jacmel Carnival - the spectacular, creative Carnival.
• The art studios - the workshops of Haitian artists.

When to go

November to March, the drier season, for the best weather; the Jacmel Carnival, held before Lent, usually in February, is the spectacular cultural highlight, a riot of extraordinary papier-mâché masks and creativity.

Good to know

As Haiti's artistic and cultural heart, with its gingerbread heritage, vibrant papier-mâché craft and spectacular Carnival, Jacmel embodies the extraordinary creative spirit of the Haitian people.

Nearby

The Bassin Bleu waterfalls, the south coast and Port-au-Prince are within reach.

Key facts