Four days in Curacao

Last June, Jo attended the Travel Blog Exchange conference in New York. While there she won a three night stay at a luxury resort in Willemstad, Curacao. So, over the long Thanksgiving weekend we flew off to Curacao.

The island is still a part of the Netherlands – The Netherland Antilles to be exact – and is inhabited by a combination of Dutch citizens and native Curacaoans. It is a very colorful, albeit small, island.

Our first night, Wednesday night, was an adventure. We arrived after dark and picked up our little rental car. We grew to love our Chevy Spark and called it The Speck.

We quickly realized that the streets on the island are poorly labeled, and what should have been a 25 minute drive from the airport to the hotel took roughly an hour and a half or so. Once we checked in to our first hotel we walked around Willemstad and found a nice little hole in the wall bar to have quick bite.

On our first full day we decided to walk around Willemstad and explore the little town. Unfortunately, we also had a boat load of rain. We spent time walking in and out of little shops, looking at the local market and the local floating market. We also spent time avoiding a downpour by crowding under the tarps that cover the floating market with the local shoppers. When it wasn’t raining, we toodled around town taking pictures of all of the beautiful buildings. We also checked in to our luxury resort and made dinner reservations at a very nice local restaurant.

The resort room was huge; with a bed on an upper level balcony and a bathroom as large as most living rooms.

Friday we went beach hopping but not before going to the Curacao liqueur plant. We were surprised by the smallness of the plant but enjoyed a few free shots of tasty liqueur.

Then we headed to the other side of the island. We started at a cute little local beach where we swam and took in a bit of sun. However, there were no frilly drinks available at the beach bar! So… we packed up and went to the beach that our resort had permission to use. They had frilly drinks! I spent a lot of time looking at all of the gorgeous fish hanging out along the wave breakers for the swim area. Jo read and hung out in the sun. When we got ready to leave the beach we discovered that someone (me) left the lights on in The Speck. Four young men from the landscaping department managed to jumpstart the car using a pair of screwdrivers to make a connection between the two batteries. We had a nice dinner, courtesy of the sales manager of the resort and prepped for the next day’s adventure.

Saturday we headed off to Christoffel National Park on the north side of the island. The park is a lot like our own Red Rocks in that it is a driving loop with hiking trails off of the road.

We took the chance to hike the trail to the top of the highest peak in Curacao. The hike was… well, more of a climb… up steep and jagged rocks. We had a great time but were surprised by the skill required to climb up to the peak. The view was definitely worth it, though. For the second part of the day, we thought we would go to the beach again. However, we did get swamped with rain so our trip to the beach was short lived. We ended our stay on the island by having a simple dinner at an outdoor diner.

Overall, the trip was nice. Curacao is not a place we would have gone without a little prompting – like a free room. Nor do I know that we would suggest it as a destination. While the island was nice, it wasn’t really overly…exciting?

Frilly drinks and sunshine,

Cory