This was one of those visceral dreams of pure fear: I was bombing in front of an audience of thousands of angry Jamaicans. Why had I ever agreed to read in this country? The audience jeered me mercilessly. Until I woke up.

Dawn was breaking over the Caribbean as great waves exploded off the coral outcroppings where my very theatrical little house was situated. Both doors were flung open and I watched the eastern sky turn the sea to pewter, then copper. As the sun rose, slanting shafts of light fell through the colored bottles embedded in my wall and crossed the floor in so many bright shimmering beams. The entire effect might have been labeled "funky cathedral." That's the way it is at Jakes, where just about everything is funky.

For reasons impervious to investigative reporting, I'd been invited to read my work at the Calabash International Literary Festival, billed as the biggest of its kind in the Caribbean. After my long van ride across the island from Kingston, Justine Henzell, the production director of the event, met me on the resort's flower-lined walkway. "So," I asked Justine, "how many people will be there to hear me read?" I figured a couple of dozen, a hundred at most.

"Oh," she said, "2,000 or so."

Two thousand! It was a number that troubled my dreams.

No matter. There were several days left until I faced the throng. That morning, I had breakfast at Jakes' casual outdoor restaurant with Jason Henzell, 35, Justine's brother and the resort's general manager. Jason was busy organizing any number of projects that had little to do with Jakes directly and everything to do with his philosophy of what a resort could be. He chatted on his cell phone about community projects and environmental initiatives, sometimes in patois, an island variant of English that is as incomprehensible to me as Urdu. I could mostly get the good-byes.

"Respect, my brother." Or: "Later den, dahlin."

Jakes is a purposely laid-back establishment, heavy on dramatic landscape, eccentric architecture, and colorful local characters. "It has become a creative retreat," Jason told me. "It is what it should be: unpretentious, authentic, true to Jamaica, and highly professional." The small resort¿there are just 29 rooms on 6 acres of land¿is situated on the remote southern part of Jamaica, in Treasure Beach, a little town of two or three streets.

Treasure Beach is not what might typically come to mind when you think "resort." The beaches are sandy in spots, interspersed with rocky headlands. Because the area is in the rain shadow of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the land is dry. Instead of mangoes, there are graceful acacia trees and various types of cactus. The mountains loom over the beach, and there is enough rainfall for intensive agriculture. The fields on the downslope of the mountains supply all of Jamaica with carrots and scallions and any number of vegetables. The seaside villages are mostly populated by fishermen and their families. This is Jamaica as one might have seen it a century ago.

Over breakfast Jason told me the story of how his family had come here. It started with an eccentric granduncle, an Englishman and novice sailor who had convinced a wealthy American that he could captain his yacht. Indeed, the uncle got the boat to Jamaica in 1929 just as the stock market crashed and rich Americans weren't sailing anywhere. They were jumping out of windows.

The granduncle, now stranded in Jamaica, sent letters back to Jason's grandfather that suggested the island was just the ticket for a fine English family. "Jamaica is great. Bring polo mallets and fishing poles," he wired. And so, on a fluke, the Henzell family settled in on the island.

"My parents," Jason said, "were hippies." Well, not quite. Perry Henzell produced, directed, and co-wrote the classic film The Harder They Come, which is about a Jamaican country boy (played by Jimmy Cliff) who moves to the festering slums of Kingston, where he becomes involved in reggae and crime. It is the story of a Bob Marley gone bad, and it was filmed in the early '70s, well before Marley's star had risen on the international horizon. Jason's mother, Sally, was the set designer.

"My father sank all his money into that film," Jason told me. The family had been living in Kingston, in quarters above the film studio. Now circumstances were such that they moved to a remote corner of Jamaica, Runaway Bay, where they bought a 400-year-old estate house that needed a little work. It was, in fact, inhabited by goats and cows. "There was no electricity or running water," Jason told me, "and I walked a mile and a half to school, barefoot. I was the only white kid. But I was accepted right away. I was good at soccer. That helps in Jamaica."

So here was this tough little white kid living in a house without electricity or running water, and he mostly spoke patois, or what is sometimes called Jamaican national language. "Nutin nah gwan," for instance, means "nothing is going on" while the converse would be "nuff tings a gwan."

Not much was going on in Runaway Bay. Jason left for military school in Virginia, and eventually ended up back in his native Jamaica. With hippies for parents, Jason and his older sister Justine did the expected: They rebelled. "She became an accountant," Jason said. "I was a banker." But by the early '90s it became clear that the economy was in trouble. Jason wanted out of banking.

The family had a vacation home near Treasure Beach built by Jason's grandfather. It was called Treasure Cot and Alex Haley rented and wrote much of Roots there. In 1991, Sally Henzell bought more land on Treasure Beach and built another house. In 1993, she started Jakes by renting out half of the new two-bedroom house.

Jason signed on as full-time partner and general manager. Sally, who never fancied herself a businesswoman anyway, was content to design and build new cottages: each fitted around the landscape, furnished with antiques and found objects like the colored bottles in my wall. Folks who stay at Jakes come for the romance of the private cottages¿at least my wife and I found ours romantic, and that's all I choose to say. Guests come for the unique atmosphere, and for a chance to socialize with Jamaicans who frequent Jakes.

In Treasure Beach, fences around most homes are about waist-high, and so is the fence around Jakes. Anything higher would be rude. Jakes is all about integration with the community. You walk down the path from the pool to your cottage and say hello to the neighbors who are hanging the wash on the line.

Later that day, an infestation of writers who would be appearing at the Calabash festival¿ there were nearly 40 of us¿ went to see the crocodiles who bask on the muddy banks of the Black River. We all walked a short distance down to Frenchman's Beach where we'd board our boats.

We met our boatman, Ted, on the beach. He was a big, broad-shouldered man in dreadlocks and had named his 40- foot motorized dugout Da Evil Ting. I asked about the name, and Ted, who tended to speak of himself in the third person, said, "Don' worry, mon, Ted always do da right ting."

He did. We motored 16 miles over to the Black River and what iscalled the Lower Morass, a 125- square-mile mangrove swamp containing 41 migratory bird species and about 300 Crocodylus acutus, a genuine American crocodile. We saw seven creatures basking motionless on the muddy banks of the river, where branches dropped off the trees and rooted in the shallow waters. They were less aggressive than crocs I'd seen in Africa and Australia, if one was to believe Ted.

We beached the boat about 12 miles upriver at a small hut, where we bought cold beer under a sign that read: "Thank you for pot smoking." Ted took a swim in the crocodileinfested water, and so did we all.

After our swim, we motored back toward Jakes, stopping for drinks and a fish dinner at the most unique dining establishment I've ever patronized. The Pelican Bar is situated on a sandbar nearly a mile from shore. It is made of weathered wood, brought out to sea two or three boards at a time by Delroy Forbes, called Floyd, a local fisherman. The ramshackle bar is set high on stilts and one climbs a ladder made of hammered together driftwood to earn a beer.

Later that evening, my wife and I chose to take a country pub crawl. A driver, Conway O'Neal, took us to the top of a nearby peak, and we worked our way down the mountainside, through agricultural fields, back toward Jakes, stopping now and again at one or another of the shop-front taverns that line the highway; places where local farmers shop for soap, rice, sugar, and toilet paper. The zinc-roofed stores sell beer, as well as the classic Jamaican drink called a Steel Bottom: Red Stripe beer poured over a shot of white rum. Men smoking giant spliffs worked on derelict cars out front, and, in one store, a nice Jamaican lady told me about "duppies," ghosts who lived in abandoned houses where "bad tings gwan."

All of the Jamaicans¿the farmers who grew scallions and carrots, the men playing dominoes, the women who generally ran the stores¿were welcoming and gracious. This had not always been my experience on previous trips. The congenial reception has a good deal to do with the work the Henzells have done on behalf of the community.

Jason, who was only 25 when he signed on as manager, brought a youthful spirit to the resort. He hired reggae bands to play at the weekly bonfires down on the beach where tourists mingle with the "bredren," which is what folks from Treasure Beach call one another; "breds" for short.

Even in the early days, there were spontaneous events at Jakes, held in a courtyard by the outdoor restaurant. "We put on a play," Sally Henzell told me. "Shakespeare in patois. So everyone came: our guests and the community. I translated, you know, ¿S'praps, s'praps nuh,' which means ¿Perhaps, perhaps not,' or, more to the point, ¿To be or not to be.' I'm sure we confused everybody." But it was fun, and the fun was being had by visitors and breds alike, which is the charm of Jakes.

Word was getting out. By 1995, Jakes had become hip. "People were landing at Montego Bay and taking a $1,000 helicopter flight to stay in a $100-a-night room," Jason told me. There was even a sprinkling of celebrities among the early guests: former heavyweight boxing champion Lennox Lewis, for instance, and rock stars such as U2's Adam Clayton, Annie Lennox, and Joan Osborne.

In 1998, Jason and Peace Corps volunteer Aaron Laufer established Breds, a nonprofit organization with a board of directors. Breds raised the money for a radio antenna and trained fishermen to use the GPS so that boats in trouble could radio in for help and give an exact position. "We used to lose one or two boats a year," Jason said. "Four to six lives." Since the system has been in place, no lives have been lost.

Emergency medical services are now available largely due to a Jakes guest, Dr. James Saddock, who was walking down the beach one day when a drowning child was pulled from the surf. The doctor saved a life that day, but was amazed that people in a fishing village didn't know what to do in such a situation. The next year, he returned with doctors from New York's Bellevue Hospital, who trained 60 local people in water rescue and CPR. Today, Treasure Beach is proud to have the first volunteer ambulance corps in Jamaica.

"Life is better here now," said Conway O'Neal, who drove my wife and me on our pub crawl.

SEVERAL THOUSAND PEOPLE DID SHOW up for the three-day Calabash festival, everyone eating and socializing under the open-sided tents by the sea, chatting with one another and listening to writers read. Jamaicans, I was to learn, are in love with the poetry of words. There were well known Jamaican writers such as Anthony Winkler and Leonie Forbes. There were also writers from around the world: China Mieville from England, Guyana's Tessa McWatt, Nigerian Chris Abani, Cuba's Arnaldo Correa, and New Zealand's Amanda Jones.

When I expressed my concerns about reading to such a large crowd, Perry Henzell, Jason's father and the author of several books himself, said, "Jamaicans are a tough audience for musicians, but they love movies and they listen to writers."

They even listened to the unpublished poets who streamed up to the microphone and read with an intense sort of Jamaican drama. People sat listening intently. An American audience would choose that time to go buy some jerk pork and a Red Stripe, I thought, but this was a Jamaican audience and they generously applauded the gesticulating readers. Jason, who sat with me for a bit, said, "Every Jamaican is a star. We can't help it."

In my previous trips, I had never properly understood how much Jamaicans loved words and stories. They loved "Jakespeare" in patois, tough-guy detective novels, poetry, and stories by Jamaican writers who lived in America and had become successful there. They revered their local writers, who received multiple standing ovations. They even liked my travel stories.

A few days after my reading, Jason asked how I'd liked the festival. I'm afraid I may have gushed a bit, but everything I said was the truth. I told him that Calabash was the finest literary festival I'd ever attended and complimented Justine on the flawless organization. I said I admired what Breds was doing for the community and the environment. Most of all, I was grateful for the opportunity to meet so many Jamaicans who shared my reverence for the poetry of the written word.

I said, "The entire event was better than I'd ever dreamed."

And that was true, too.