Curacao

Today was a brand new port for us. Curacao also belonged to the Netherland Antilles, however in November of last year the Netherlands became Holland and the 6 islands formerly known as the Netherlands Antilles.

We did a country tour of the island, going from the port, through  the town of Willemstad to the north coast and all the way to the west of the island. Eighty percent of the people in Curacao live in or near Willemstad. The remaining 20 % are mostly fishermen who live throughout the island.

Curacao’s history is one of plantations and slavery. Many of the original plantation houses still exist. Plantations consisted of indigo, sugar cane, cotton, mangos, and a shrub that produces latex. Many of the former crops continue to flourish in the wild, however, no one “farms” any longer on this island – everything except for the fish is imported, mostly from Venezuela.

The island, like Aruba and perhaps the rest of this group of islands is one of stark contrasts. Willemstad is a beautiful city – full of well-maintained, colourful houses. The secret of these houses is the fact that they are built of coral blocks. As the salt leaches out of the coral it blisters the paint – the houses have to be painted every year and every year each house is painted a different colour that the year before. As you move out of the city the landscape is much starker. We passed what the islanders call “slave walls”. These are stone walls (mostly falling down) that the slaves were forced to build stone by stone.

When slavery was abolished on Curacao, instead of paying the freedmen, every year the plantation owners gave each slave a square meter of land. Once a slave had enough land, they built a “corn house” – a small home with corn stalks for a roof. As they acquired more land, they were able to begin to plant some of their own crops.

The north coast of the island is wild. Here the Caribbean crashes into the rocky coast with enough force that the salt spray travels inland. At one time the island had a wind farm, however, because of the salt spray, all of the wind generators became corroded and stopped.

The south coast of the island is a series of inlets that contain beautiful white sand beaches. This is the kind of coast that will eventually be covered with tourist resorts as the beaches are lovely and the swimming is perfect.

Between the beautiful white beaches and Willemstad is a vast area of salt flats that is, at times, apparently home to a vast array of flamingos. Unfortunately, most of the flamingos weren’t home today – we could see perhaps half a dozen at the very back of the flats – too far away to get pictures.

The south side of the island has a beautiful vine with gorgeous pink flowers. Apparently this vine is quite invasive and grows 4 -5 inches per day. According to our tour guide, you go on vacation and then can’t find your car when you return!

After this 3 ½ hour tour, it was back to the ship and off we sailed into our second last sea day.