Willemstad, Curaçao

Cruising overnight it was a quick trip to get to this largest of the ABC’s, Curaçao and its capital, Willemstad, Our voyage was much shorter than the one that brought the first cruise ship here in 1901, the SS Prinzessin Victoria Luise with her 200 passengers from Germany. 

Above was our first glimpse of the island as we headed to the dock.  Since I found it pretty interesting let me share a little of the history on Curaçao, where inhabitants go back millennia with pre-Columbian peoples.  After being “discovered” and claimed by the Spanish in 1499, just fourteen years later in 1513 Diego Columbus, Christopher’s oldest son, declared Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao to be the “Islas Inutiles” or the “Useless Islands” because they had no precious metals.  At that point the entire local populations of all three islands were deported to Hispaniola to work in the copper mines, apparently that was a useful island.  Eventually some inhabitants were returned home where they got along just fine until 1634 when the Dutch West India Company decided to send an expedition to conquer the island.  Not long after that successful capture Curaçao became a hub of the African slave trade for the next 200 years.  Plantations on the island grew sugar cane, aloe and indigo to work their own slaves, some of the mansion houses can still be seen and a few of them can be toured. All of Willemstad’s downtown is a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to all the colorful Dutch architecture.  The city is separated by the Saint Anna Bay, one side is called Punda, where the original settlement began, and then Otrobanda - “the other side” - where we docked.  The economy is now based on tourism so people were pretty “dushi” with us, that’s a Papiamento word that means sweet, nice, good, and one that I saw on signs around the island

I got to see a bit of this island that's just 40 miles north of Venezuela on my way to the beach.  Many more cacti around this island, although not as many as Aruba, some entwined with green vines and pink flowers.  

After having looked forward to seeing flamingos in the wild I was excited to see a few here on the island.  Did you know that their color is due to eating their favorite food, shrimp?  If that were me I'd be a hodgepodge of colors because I have so many favorites!  When they're born flamingos are white or gray and their color changes as they grow older.  Another interesting fact is that they mate for life.  

We had one stop before arriving on the promised beach, the Nena Sanchez Gallery at the old Landhuis Jan Kok., pictured below.  This structure is the oldest and smallest colonial house on the island, most of it restored since all but the storage house had deteriorated over the centuries.  The current structure was built in 1840 and later became the colorful home, take color clues from the welcome sign, of local artist Nena Sanchez.  Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take photos inside but it was a fun spot to visit.

Hopefully these two statues that were out on the grounds will give you an idea of Nena's style, a definite Caribbean vibe.

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Cas Abao was a small stretch of sand between some rock outcroppings with soft, white sands.  I hadn't known what to expect as we rode in a bus down a bumpy dirt road, especially when I saw a run down beach resort on the way there where everything looked overgrown and the pool was green.  On the return trip I was able to see the "For Sale by Owner" sign outside it which explained its appearance.

With warm sand and warm water I took the plunge, adjusted my mask, bit down on my snorkel and looked below the waves to see what I could see.  It turned out that I could see a lot but unfortunately I'm not a good snorkeler/photographer, I'll work on that.  It must have been feeding time as there were lots of fish eating along the bottom, parrot fish, some small silvery white variety, fish that looked like Nemo's friend Dory, a chunky species that looked like a piece of coral, and some aloof white angel fish..  I think this was the first time I was ever brave enough to snorkel on my own. 

All in all it was a relaxing stay on the beach, warm breeze, lounger to lie on to listen to a podcast, and a fresh lemonade to drink.

I found out the only predator on Curaçao is this type of hawk, our guide didn't give a name.  This one flew right in front of the bus and then landed on the tree, thank you zoom lens!

Just a few colorful townhomes I saw on the way back to Serenade.  Being a bigger island there is a lot more of Curaçao that is undeveloped than on Aruba, especially on the north end of the island.  Couple of random places I saw on this drive were the New California Supermarket, and a place that looked like a total dive called the Superb Restaurant.  One of my favorite sights were the unexpected blankets of green vines with rose colored blossoms I'd see growing along the roadside, so lovely.

Lest anyone think I'm making up all these dive trips of Karl's here he is on the left helping out his dive buddy Ian, who attributes a good part of his sticking with getting his dive certification to Karl's support and encouragement. Ian is 73.

Karl's dive master had recommended we go eat at a place called Lionfish Caribbean, which seemed kind of counterintuitive since that species is poisonous but search them out we did, late in the afternoon on a warm day  when I was really hungry, I hadn't eaten all day.  Okay, so I almost got a little hangry, but eventually we did find this bright pink restaurant and ordered our food.

It turned out we'd found a quaint little space full of shops and restaurants, plus an outdoor Christmas market.  It was the perfect place for me to go find a Christmas ornament.  It says "Bria, Bria, Bria" on it, which means "Shine, Shine, Shine!"

We'd ordered Lionfish tacos and Lionfish and chips.  It's a pretty tricky proposition to filet a Lionfish but the meat is soft, mild and delicious.  The poisonous spines are neutralized by boiling them, then they are used to garnish the food and to make some interesting earrings and other jewelry, sorry I didn't get a photo of the latter.

Their goal is to use all of this fish that is a threat to the fish on the reefs around the islands.  This restaurant did a pretty good job achieving that goal.

And that stroopwafel I mentioned earlier? Oh was it good!  There was a cart in the area that made them fresh, smashing small balls of dough in their wafel machine until they were both crispy and chewy, then putting a thick, gooey, cinnamony syrup between two of them and handing it over, still warm.  I probably should have gotten two because Karl didn't get very much of it.

Loved this Christmas tree in the midst of the market so had Karl take a photo as we left.

Those colorful colonial buildings on the Punda side are known as the Handelskade and are probably the most well known sight on the island.  You can see them along the bay and also all through town.  The story goes that they were not always so colorful, all of them used to be whitewashed until the governor ordered them painted pastel colors in 1817 to reduce the glare around town.

 

We had planned to cross over the Queen Emma Bridge that connects the two sides of the bay, also known as the Swinging Old Lady, so we headed towards it.  She’s a pontoon bridge built in 1888, whose 500 ft (152 m) of length is held up by sixteen pontoon boats and she swings laterally thanks to two motors that open and close her.  

The bridge was open and so we hoped we'd hit the jackpot and get to walk across plus see the bridge close again, however the wait was longer than we'd anticipated thanks to this large ship coming down the bay to the sea.  We did get to see the Swinging Old Lady eventually make her way back to the other side though.

Above was our last shining view of Curaçao as we departed that night, the lights of the Queen Emma Bridge below and the taller Queen Juliana Bridge in the background.  All in all another lovely day!