Curacao

A Visit to Curacao,

We had a marvelous day. Curacao is a beautiful island; idyllic actually.

Our tour began with a ride on a very nice modern tour bus with narration by a very capable guide.

We drove around Willemstad while the guide Rosalie pointed out places of interest and told us all about the Island’s history. This Island was part of Holland and was ruled by it but now it is independent but still gets a little help from Holland. Anyway it is a beautiful island with modern education, public health care, well educated people all of whom speak 4 or more official languages.

 They have several oil refineries here. Crude is brought in from Venezuela,( 20 miles away) refined and then returned. It is also a large container port and it has an international airport.

The climate is ideal and the standard of living is quite good. The cost of living is high with the most expensive thing being electricity and water. They have desalination plants because natural sources of fresh water are few.

Our guide told us a story of one of the governors of their island. He said that all of the white houses were giving him headaches and so he ordered everyone to paint their homes bright colors. He did not care which color once it was not white. Everyone complied and so their island is now one of the most colorful places on the planet. They learned later that the governor owned the paint company that supplied the paint. He made a great deal of money and on learning that fact the people were upset that they had been used. Now the islanders are proud of their brightly colored island.

One of our stops was at the factory where they make the famous Curacao Liqueur. We were given 3 samples to taste and Ken and I bought a bottle of the coffee liqueur. It was something we enjoyed from our last visit here. It will be a treasure for sure.

Our last stop was Mambo Beach. This is actually at a resort but our wrist band gave us entry to the beach. It is a beautiful place. There is a wonderful breakwater which means calm waters. 

They provided chaise lounge chairs and cold water for a cost of $3.50 US per person which was a great rate. We had 2 hours here. I was able to get a lounge chair in the shade and right across from me was a sunny spot for Ken. I spent a lot of time in the water and I also strolled the beach taking pictures. I was quite surprised to see what a sun burn I got. This was my first day in the hot Caribbean sun actually and I over did it. But because of the wonderful sea breeze and the refreshing warm water I did not notice that I was getting too much sun. I will have to be more careful.

Our tour began at one and we were due back at the ship at one so we had 4 glorious hours. We really enjoyed ourselves and we got lots of ideas on what we can do when we are here again in a couple of weeks

We spent the rest of our day relaxing and enjoying the cruise.

Tomorrow we are in Aruba!! One Happy Island.