Day 11-Curaçao

Our start today was a little later at 9.30 so coffee in the cabin then breakfast in Horizon.

We were definitely disappointed that our original excursion had been cancelled but our Free Walking Tour was a really fabulous alternative. Curacao, or at least Willemstad, is totally different from the islands we’ve been to so far. For a start the island is virtually flat, like its parent country, Holland. Also the buildings in the city are much grander and are beautifully maintained. There is a strong programme of regeneration as well, driven largely by the artist community so it is now possible to walk through some of the outer areas of the city, which we did on our tour. There was so much wonderful street art including amazing murals and sculptures.

Our guide was again excellent and gave us so much information we just can’t remember it all, but some of the main facts - it is still a Dutch colony, the 6 countries of the Dutch Antilles broke up in 2010, it is a matriarchal country and a lot of the art centres around the female, the language is Papiamento, a Portuguese’s creole language, but 4 languages are taught in school - this, Dutch, English and Spanish, the buildings in the first district we visited, Otrabanda, were built around 200 years years ago and this of the other area we visited, Punda, were about 300 years old. Otrabanda was an area that you couldn’t walk around a few years ago but thanks to the regeneration projects it is now a vibrant area with many local businesses and plenty of art. Punda is the commercial area where there are a huge number of shops including some very high end local and chain stores. To get from one district to the other you have to cross a swing bridge, the Queen Emma Bridge or the Swinging Old Lady. There is also a local beer of the same name. The bridge was built in the 19th century and is very impressive.

After our walk we went back to a restaurant in Otrabanda that our guide had recommended, Rustiq. As promised they had iguana soup on the menu but instead we went for goat stew and salt fish stew and two local beers (not swinging old lady). We got the beers and two beef stews 😂😂. They were so disorganised, but we didn’t make a fuss, we just ate the beef.

We then did a very small tad of shopping - a long sleeved tee shirt for Steve, some earrings made from lionfish, funnily enough, not for Steve and some local chocolate.  We learned a lot about lionfish - they are destroying the local fish life as well as the coral reefs and so they are trying to reduce the lionfish population as much as possible.

Shopping finished, we wondered back to the ship. It was so lovely in Willemstad that we really didn’t want to leave so our journey back to the boat was as slow as possible.

But now we are back and doing our usual crash in our cabin. Then later we will head to Peninsular for dinner. But first we are going to go on deck and watch as we sail from the lovely island of Curacao.