Curacao Tour Day

Hello from Curacao!

Our day began early when our cell phone rang and the local cell phone company welcomed us to Curacao, and then advised us how to call back to the states on our cell phone! I thought to myself, what a great marketing ploy! As it turned out I needed to call back to New Hampshire, as some business needed settling.

Meanwhile, since we were up, we got dressed and ready for breakfast. In Curacao we had two tours that we were making and so we needed to be prepared for both.

The first was a scenic drive across the island. We heard old tales of the island and saw how the vegetation changed from one side of this 36 mile long island to the other. We drove to the west end of the island and visited two very beautiful, yet very different beaches.

Our guide was a nice Dutch woman who spoke English quite well, and even though she had only been working as a tour guide for three months, she was doing an excellent job. She took us to one beach that was almost totally coral formations and we walked to the viewing areas and back. That’s when I saw this handsome creature begging for a kiss!

Curacao is a very different island from those I have been to before in the Caribbean. The vegetation is thick and there isn’t much top soil, so things don’t grow here very well. But life goes on, and the Curacaoan’s make it all work.

We got back to the ship just after noon and literally raced up to the buffet and had lunch. Then we got back down to the docks to get our second tour. This one was the Hato Caves and the best of Curacao. Our guide was a local woman named Mayae. She gave us such a great tour, taking us up for a good view of the ship,

and then off to the Curacao Distillery to try their liquor. We all tasted it, even me who put it to my lips and tasted. Quite interesting. Although one man excalined, “Oh this tasted just like cough syrup!”. Perhaps this is true! LOL

Then we were off to the Hato Caves. A natural cave area with wonderful stalagmites and stalactites and even a chamber for the care and nurturing of bats! (Janet I know you will love that!) We even saw an Iguana, and I captured this picture.

We drove back into town and went to the museum of Curacao and our tour guide demonstrated to us how to play the carillon, which is part of the museum. What a treat that was.

We needed a few supplies and we mentioned that to our driver and to Mayea. They knew we needed to make our stop short, so that we wouldn’t miss our ship out, so Mayea offered to drive us to the shop and back.

All in all, I found Curacao a truly interesting place to visit. We are now underway to Aruba!