Sunday morning, January 16, 8:00 a.m. – Our floating palace pulls into Willemstad, Curaҫao (pronounced “cure-sow”)! Our group affectionately calls this island “Heal a Pig”! Curaҫao is the “C” in the Dutch ABC islands. Discovered by Alonso D’Ojeda in 1499, only seven years after Christopher Columbus first landed in the “New World”, this island is one of the oldest European settlements in the Caribbean. Touched by this land’s welcoming atmosphere, D’Ojeda named the island Curaҫao, Portuguese for “heart”. After being governed by the Spanish for over a century, the island was conquered by the Dutch discoverer Johan van Walbeeck in 1634. Today however, Curaҫao functions independently. Being the largest of the former Dutch islands and the one with the most convenient geographic location, it became the main port of trade for the West- Indische Compagnie (West Indies Trading Company) throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. The natural harbor with its unique shape and narrow canal-type entrance proved easy to safeguard against invaders and thus provided an excellent location for Shell’s principle oil refinery in the West Indies in the early 1900s.
I had not been to Curaҫao before so decided to take a shore tour. The Country Drive tour looked like a good one. Johnny was our guide for the day. Willemstad is known for its rows of colorful buildings. Johnny explained that when the Spanish occupied the city they had painted all the buildings white. So when the Dutch took over, the Governor made a law that no building could be painted white in the city without a special permit. It should also be noted that the Governor had previously been a businessman before he became governor. You guessed it…he owned a paint store! The result today is row upon row of rainbow colored buildings that make this island unique.
We learned a lot from Johnny. The children in Curaҫao speak 4 languages. In addition to their local dialect, grade school students learn Dutch and Spanish and high school students learn English. Many speak additional languages. There are 2 types of cactus on the island. One type is used for
fences and the other for soup! There basically are two seasons…rainy and dry and the temperature is the same all year round…hot! Curaҫao was a plantation island and used slaves to do the work. Tula was the slave that started the revolt that led to the freeing of the slaves in 1863. We visited the Tula Museum, a restored plantation house, to learn about the history of the people of the island. Descendants of the slaves guided us through the plantation house and demonstrated the implements, songs, musical instruments and dances of their ancestors. Next on the tour was a quick stop at Knip Beach, a beautiful Caribbean beach enjoyed by the locals. Then it was on to the salt flats, where we saw a large population of pink flamingos. They feed in the salt flats here, but nest in Bonaire, the “B” of the ABC Dutch islands, which we will not be visiting on this cruise.
After our 3 ½ hour tour ended we had a little time to explore the island on our own. Since it was Sunday, most of the downtown stores were closed, but we could hear music coming from the area of the floating bridge. Some sort of local festival was going on. Willemstead is divided by a small natural harbor. A floating pedestrian bridge connects the two halves of the town. When a boat wants to transit, the bridge swings to the side from a pivot on one side. We got there just in time to see the bridge swing as a small boat came through!
It doesn’t only help you treat erectile dysfunction, but improves your overall cheapest cialis health and wellbeing as well. All a man has to do is take a tadalafil cialis generika pill just an hour before going to bed. The name might be difference but the main medicine is soft viagra . Thanks to recent medical Our link cheap levitra advancements, this can be a result of alcohol or fatigue and should not be regarded and treated as chronic impotence. After exploring the town, it was back to the ship by the 4:30 all aboard time. After dinner the cruise line presented a wonderful steel drum show by Island Magic, a group out of Trinidad. They were incredible! The show was not your normal steel drum concert. By using 8 different steel drums they performed elegant tropical renditions of Broadway and classical melodies. The group brought the house down and the cruise director promised to bring them back later in the cruise for another concert. A perfect end to a perfect day! (P. S. I grabbed an elevator back to my cabin after the show and when the door opened on my floor I found that I was face to face with Jimmy Fortune, who was in his bathrobe & swimming suit. He was on the way to a late evening soak in the hot tub!)
Monday, January 17 – A relaxing day at sea. There are lots of things to choose from, or I can choose to do nothing at all. That’s the beauty of cruising! I heard that David & Esther Ann won the nautical trivia contest! Not surprising, since David is a retired Navy Captain. The others never had a chance! I could learn to Tango, play some pool games, or take advantage of the many seminars being offered on various topics. No one can be bored on this ship! I saw Mary Ann & Jean lining up to watch the fashion show at the Signature shops on deck 3. I think I’ll just work on my blog and relax a bit.
Jimmy Fortune’s second private show for our group began at 5:30. It was a great show! He started off with a rousing “What Money Can’t Buy”,
one of his original songs. Kenny & Brenda renewed their vows yesterday so Jimmy had them come up and dance to his “My Only Love”. After that it’s “Crying Ain’t Gonna Get Me Over You”, followed by an Eagles song, “Peaceful, Easy Feeling”. Jimmy then took a moment to talk about his special friends, group members Wayne & Liz Duley. Wayne helped Jimmy get a job back when he had nothing and they are a very special couple to him. In tribute to them he sang “IF”, and then talked a bit about his early days and struggles.
Tomorrow we will be at the Panama Canal…a big day!
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Aunt Lynette, I really like your picture of the flamingos! I know what kind of flamingos they are. They are Caribbean flamingos, also called American flamingos. I wrote a blog post about them on my website. I also made a car that is shaped like a flamingo.
While you were there, did you see any Antilles pink-toe tarantulas?
Hi Raymie,
I’m glad you liked the flamingos! It was fun to see them in the wild. I didn’t see any tarantulas, but some other people in my group did. I don’t know if they had pink toes, though. I saw some sloths in Costa Rica up close, both 2 toed and 3 toed. Do you know how to tell the difference without looking at their toes? Sloths move really slow. We saw a mother and her baby and got a really good picture of them. Maybe it will be in my next post. We also saw some very small bats that were clinging to a tree. They were about the size of an old silver dollar. Maybe your grandpa has one of those and can show you how small that is.