Curacao - June 17, 2008

Curacao, June 17, 2008

We docked just before 8:00 in the morning at Curacao (Cur’-a-sow) and met our guide, Leo. Eddie had found him on the internet and booked him, so we were his van full for the day. It was blissfully air conditioned (unlike lots of other tour vans), he spoke good English and had a sound system in the little van so that we could actually hear what he said. Leo was about our age and was very nice.

Curacao was discovered (already inhabited, incidentally) by Spain in 1499. They decided it was worthless because there wasn’t any gold there, but there was a little water and food so they used it as a stopover. In 1634 the Dutch took it over and built the first fort, Ft. Amsterdam. Since 1815 it’s been a Dutch possession. It’s kind of interesting to me that since the 1600’s, they Dutch have ditched all their rental property except that located in good vacation spots.

We landed in Williamstadt, which is the capital city. The buildings in the old part of town are something like Venice, in that they’re built up pretty closely to the water. They’re all brightly colored, though, like San Francisco Victorian Ladies on vacation. Most of the historic buildings, which are built of concrete and stone, have to be painted every couple of years because of the salt content in the sand that was used. As a result, they’re not residential anymore but have converted over to business properties.

The two claims to fame downtown are the longest floating bridge in the world, which opens 30 to 35 times a day (much like the refrigerator door during the summer in a house with small children). They also have the highest bridge in the Caribbean, 55.8 meters above the water. We went over it 2 or 3 times circling around downtown.

Like Aruba, Curacao is off the coast of Venezuala and they figured out that their money could be made in a refinery, rather than drilling for oil. Shell had a huge facility there until they closed it in 1986 and left. It’s now run by the government.

The other thing that Curacao is known for is shipbuilding. They used to build a lot of boats here. The only one left is a replica turned restaurant. Apparently once they chopped down all the mahogany trees the market went to pot.

Curacao is only 34 miles long, and between 3 and 15 miles wide. It has a population of 140,000, and gasoline runs about $5.00 a gallon. They claim both the oldest Protestant Church in the western hemisphere (1769) and the oldest Jewish Synagogue in continuous use in the Western Hemisphere. It was interesting to note that cemeteries and burials here are above ground in mausoleums, like in New Orleans. I don’t think it’s because of the high water table, but rather because it’s too difficult to blast holes in the volcanic rock that makes up the island.

Curacao produced salt until the 1950’s, although it wasn’t ever really profitable. It was a status symbol for the dutch to have a plantation house there, and since nothing else would take root they’d grow salt. After that fell apart, someone figured out that those big flat tracts were good for growing shopping centers, which seem to be flourishing right now.

This place is definitely on the upswing of a building boom. They’ve only had one major hotel since the 1950’s (the Plaza, the only high rise on the island and the only hotel in the world insured against ship collision. Apparently that was wasted in our case, as we didn’t park the ship anywhere close, even.)

The Spanish brought oranges and tried to grow them here without success. They didn’t grow big juicy fruit, but instead made little dried up things that were sour and inedible. The plants soon grew everywhere on the island, though (since they’d cut down a bunch of the mahogany trees) and some pharmacist figured out that he could make a “tonic” that was mostly liquor from them.

Recognizing that there’s usually a market for a new brand of hooch, Curacao of Curacao liquor was created. The factory is very small – they produce only 200 liters a week, and it all goes into mouth-blown bottles (copyright protected) made in Venezuela. Coffee flavored was my favorite.

One personal bit of trivia that I saw was the “William Ellis Public School.” For those that don’t know, William Ellis was my paternal great-grandfather. Whod’a thunk he’d have gotten this far south?

The island has one college, with 4 majors. If you want something else, you go offsite. About 85% of the students go to Holland to study. They have a public healthcare system with one fairly large hospital. We also saw a medical school, but from the looks of the buildings, I’m not sure that I’d want my physician coming from there. Maybe they specialize in HMO doctors?

They have 2 wind energy parks that produce 4% of the electricity on the island and have to desalinate their water like Aruba. We did see typical Oklahoma windmills, though, which were apparently pumping water. He told us that they only get about 34 inches of rain a year, mostly in January and February. Because of this, agriculture is severely limited to mostly goats and naked sheep (who wants to wear a wool coat in the Caribbean??)

They have one of 5 species of fish eating bats here. We, unfortunately, didn’t get to see them.

The shoreline here is very volcanic looking. Apparently Curacao is formed by the same volcanoes that created the Gallapagos islands, but then the ocean came up over time so there are layers of ocean life above them in the sediment. Part of it, though, results in these craggy volcanic shorelines that produce some pretty spectacular water shows. The waves hit the shoreline, go into caves or holes and then are compressed out with no place to go but up, so they shoot these geyser-like sprays up. Although the shoreline is pretty, most of it isn’t a place you want to go spread out a towel and sunbathe.
The second place we went to was a sea cave. Underwater, dark, confined – not my type of happy place. There are steps, though, so most of us made it down for a peak.

They eat iguanas here, either in soup or stew. No, we didn’t.

Our last stop after the sea cave was a beach on the other side of the island with absolutely crystal clear water. It was nice to get in the water for a bit and cool off after riding around in the van all morning. There wasn’t a lot of sand, but there was fine volcanic rock that was very sand-like. I stepped on a larger rock that apparently was the roof of something’s home, and it was most unhappy. I learned that I can still jump very, very high in the water if necessary.

I’d probably have been pissed, too, if something ripped the roof off of my house one afternoon.

By 2:00 we were back at the ship having lunch. I hadn’t gotten the obligatory shot glass, Christmas ornament or postcards, so I ventured back out while the others went to the pool. Regardless of what you may think, when you check off the boat and the security guard says, “1 hour, sir, before we sail.”, you re-think the need for postcards. Like all ports, though, there was shopping immediately nearby so I made the dash out and got it all taken care of in the first store. I was back on the ship, $16.82 poorer, with 30 minutes to spare.

We went to a show that evening, which was pretty good. They sang songs from movies that covered several generations, from the 50’s up. After dinner we walked through the casino and nobody was pushing the kids to leave, so they got to watch for a bit. I gave the boys a quick lesson on how to piss away $40.00 in the slot machines. I think it was worthwhile tuition to show that they usually don’t pay off very well and your money’s just gone pretty quickly.

Today (Thursday) is a day at sea. We slept in a bit and plan lots of resting and reading for the balance of the day. The ice show (yes, there’s an ice skating rink on this ship) is this evening and we have tickets to the early show. After that it’s another “formal night” dinner, and the last one into which we have to squeeze ourselves into our dress clothes. I think we’ve reached the conclusion that on future cruises we’re not going to worry so much about that. There are lots of people coming in who aren’t in suits and ties. I think that long pants and a nice shirt is probably adequate.

We like our waiter and his assistant. Both are named Luis, although the head one is from Jamaica and the assistant is from Colombia. We see them cleaning up after dinner and then up to serve breakfast in the morning – that’s got to be a tough life, but they’re always very cheerful and pleasant.

On that happy note, it’s 10:00 in the morning, daylight’s burning and I’m off to post this and claim my seat poolside.