Curacao? What’s a Curacao?

26 December 2007

Willemstad, Curacao, Netherlands Antilles

If you had asked me a couple of weeks ago to point to Curacao on a map I probably would have looked at you and asked what a Curacao was. Today I am quite taken by this island and especially the port of Willemstad where we docked.

One of the advantages of never having heard of Curacao was the pleasant surprise I got when I stepped off the gangway. You never really know just where the ship is docked, whether it’s a long way from downtown or right next to a major shopping centre.

In some ways a bit of distance can be a good thing because I really enjoyed my walks into Charlotte Amelie on St Thomas, the feeling that I was touching a bit of the local soil and not just stepping from the ship into a duty free store. Of course in that situation I was there a number of times and I knew where I was going and what I wanted to see so I had the time to take a leisurely walk and enjoy the view.

Other times it can be nice to have the ship pulled up to a convenient place, kind of like getting that special parking place right outside where you want to go and getting out of the car with a warm feeling that it may very well be your day today.

Today was a day where the ship was the perfect distance from where I wanted to go, even if we apparently got beaten out of our normal mooring by the Queen Mary 2 which was docked a bit further along.

Last night was secret Santa time in the casino after we closed and gifts were handed out to all of us, bought by someone else who had drawn our name out of a hat. I was pretty happy with the bag full of chocolate that I got. In the end I was a bit later getting to bed than might otherwise have been the case and it meant that I had to set my alarm so I could wake up and have enough time to see the new port. Not knowing what it was going to be like I wanted to allow enough time to do it justice if it was worthwhile or be able to get back to the ship and have a decent nap if it wasn’t. I’m glad I bothered to get up early.

Leaving the ship the first thing that stands out is a massively impressive bridge a short distance away that towers so far above everything around it that it seems almost like one of those alien machines from War of the Worlds. There were vehicles going over it but its height and the way that it stood with so little visible means of support meant that I knew I would be unlikely to venture over it. My head for heights is not good enough to let me stand comfortably on a ladder let alone something like a modern version of those ancient roman aqueducts that still dwarf their surrounds.

Willemstad is built around a large lake or lagoon that is connected to the Caribbean by a narrow inlet. This modern bridge connects the two halves of the town and must save a lot of time driving the long way around.

Heading the opposite direction to the modern bridge I came to the much older, if recently restored, Queen Emma pontoon bridge. This bridge is much more my style and is for pedestrian traffic only. It is wooden and floats on a series of pontoons giving it a sort of rolling feel as you walk over it. It is, however, an impediment to boat traffic and the way around this is for the entire bridge to pivot on one end and sort of swing sideways out of the way to let boats pass. It’s quite an impressive thing to watch and those people already on the bridge as it starts to move get a bit of a free ride as it swings out of place and then back into place to allow them to continue on. A couple of men in a small hut at the free end control the whole movement and they sit and wait for boats to approach the bridge before swinging into action, pun intended.

The town itself looks so European/Dutch that it’s easy to forget, looking at it from the banks of the river, that you are actually in the Caribbean. Of course the heat is a constant reminder but purely visually it has a feeling of a canal side town with all of the pastel coloured timber buildings, narrow one way streets and European looking road and street signs. It’s a very pretty town and even though it is Boxing Day today there were still a number of shops and restaurants open and not too much of a crowd despite two ships being in port.

Crossing the pontoon bridge I wandered the streets for a while, looking in a couple of electronic stores out of curiosity rather than any real desire to buy anything. If there is one difference between Princess last contract and Holland America this time it seems to be the amount of tips. I thought that they weren’t great on Princess but they were pretty good compared to this time, making looking in electronic stores much more of an academic exercise this time around than a real one. There was a nice mixture of big name duty free stores and local ones and many of what were once streets for traffic are now pedestrian only, making the town an easy one to walk around.

Little alley ways lead to small squares with restaurants lining them and there is even a floating market where fish, fruit and vegetables are bought in from Venezuela each morning to be sold.

Walking down to the sea I found a number of restaurants literally built on the waterfront and had a fantastic steak sandwich and a couple of beers in a place called The Grillking. The balcony overhanging the water may have been roughly hewn and the chair may have been a little wobbly but the view was magic and the food excellent. I sat there for a while watching the fish, crabs and sea snakes play in a rock pool literally right under my seat and then continued back into the centre of town. Then I just walked around, admiring the architecture or simply sitting for a while and watching the bridge open and close to let the boat traffic through. It may have been because it was Boxing Day but there was a nice laidback feel to the town and a few hours in any of the restaurants or cafes would be time well spent.

Picturesque may be a term overused, especially in a lot of travel writing but this port in Curacao has the right to the term and I’m not afraid to be called hackneyed in using it. I’m going to be adding it to my list of Caribbean places that I want to return to and explore in greater detail.