The island of Antigua was discovered and named by Christopher Columbus in 1493. The first English settlers arrived in 1632 and found an island covered in virgin forest. In the years that followed the landscape was transformed until a total of 160 sugar plantations effectively transformed the island into a huge sugar factory.
As you stand in our rainforest, listening to the sounds of the animals and insects carefully hiding among the trees try to imagine the feelings of those first settlers for whom this was an exciting and terrifying new world.
The sugar cane that eventually came to dominate Antigua was processed on the island. If you look carefully you will spot the place where this took place, the Sugar Workshop, our next destination.
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