Saturday, December 25, 2021; Christmas Day in Curaçao

 Saturday, December 25, 2021; Christmas Day in Curaçao

The ship arrived pretty much on time in Curaçao, but it seemed to take a long time for the ship to receive clearance to disembark passengers.  We had signed up for an all day island bus tour broken up into a morning and afternoon sessions.  We were supposed to meet at the bus dockside at 8:50am, but they didn’t open the gangway until 9:00.  Earlier in the week, two cruise ships (Odyssey of the Seas and Carnival Freedom) were both denied docking due to Covid outbreaks on board.  It came as a great relief when they finally announced opening of the gangways because that meant that we didn’t have any known Covid cases on our ship as of that moment.  

Even they don’t involve that much physical activity, these cruise ship bus tours can tend to be fatiguing and hot.  I was a little surprised that our tour bus was full with 34 passengers. They had the first 3 rows blocked off as part of Covid procedures to keep us socially distanced from the driver and guide.  This meant that every seat behind that was full with 2 passengers, even if they were from different groups.  The bus was otherwise unremarkable.  It had working AC and the windows were clean.  Our guide was from the Netherlands, but had lived in Curaçao for the last 30 years.  She spoke with a bit of an accent but was pretty easily understandable. The driver also spoke English well.

The morning tour took us around the north end of the island where we first stopped to see the Kenepa Plantation house on the Island, but since the outbreak of the pandemic, it has been closed to visitors.  It’s importance is also related to Black slave named Tula, who had learned to read and write on his own.  He had read that black slaves had been freed on neighboring Haiti- a French possession at the time.  While Curaçao was under the rule of the Netherlands at the time, the Netherlands were occupied by the French at that time as well.  He lead a revolution which eventually lead to the abolishment of slavery on Curaçao, but not until long after he had been killed for his cause. 

 

From there we drove to Playa Kenepa, which is a beautiful sandy beach where some of the snorkeling excursion go.  People jump from a cliff along the souther edge of the beach, and sometimes you can see green turtles in the water because local fishermen toss their fish entrails and bones into the water.  Apparently juvenile turtles feed on this, despite their otherwise being considered vegans.  We saw neither cliff jumpers or green turtles but got to stroll around, take pictures and dip a toe in the water, but not go for a swim. Our stop there was just 15-20 minutes.  

We then drove to a small national park (Shete Boka) which was on the windward side of the Island with a very rocky shore and narrow inlet with a small cave where you could peer out through the opening as the sea rushed into the cave and surged under a viewing platform.  The rocks were limestone, and there were small lizards darting about on the rocks.  There are cacti and succulents growing in depressions of the rocks.  In some ways, it reminded us of the Galapagos, although the geology is of entirely different origin (coral reefs vs volcanic).  While tectonic activity has thrust the islands of the Caribbean up above the surface from their origins deep below, this was the result of plates buckling and riding over each other rather than from magma eruptions.  The cave was quite tiny so only 5 or 6 people could go down onto the viewing platform and it was very slippery, wet and dark, but a very cool thing to see.  

Our next stop was the Konoko house, or Kas Di Pali Maishi.  This is a tiny cabin which was a typical residence for a freed slave.  They were typically granted tiny plots of land to live on and no other government assistance, so they had to be resourceful to live.  This is a living museum with guides who demonstrated many aspects of the tough lives the freed former slaves lived.  One of the interesting items was that local cacti were often planted in rows to form fences to keep goats and other animals out of garden areas.  They were also planted to form structures like walls for an outhouse or laundry drying rack.  They also had a stone oven for baking and a pit for making charcoal, which was most commonly used for cooking until the Royal Dutch Shell company brought oil refining and products such as kerosine to the island.  The presentations were a highlight of the day.

We then drove past a salt marsh where flamingos are sometimes found.  Oddly enough, the locals have erected a WILLIWOOD sign on a nearby hill looking like their local tribute to the famous sign overlooking HOLLYWOOD.  We were fortunate to be able to spot some flamingos napping with their heads tucked and standing on one let out in the middle of the marsh.  

The bus returned us to the ship for a lunch break.  Janet, Ben, John and Price had Italian food at Alfredo’s Pizzeria in the atrium while Ciara and Tom’s family ran up to the Horizon Court buffet.  We then reboarded the bus and headed off to see the Hato Cave in the southern half of the island.  This is a limestone cave with stalagmites, stalagtites, iguanas and bats.  It was strange that it was very warm and humid inside the cave when most other limestone caves we have seen tend to be cool like a wine cellar.  They said that because this cave was lifted so far above sea level, the limestone heats up and retains the heat.  It appears to be a highly developed cave with concrete steps, walkways, lighting and railings, but also appears to be a good example of a poorly preserved limestone cave because it didn’t fall under government preservation until very recently.  Most of the formations are dull or outright filthy with soot and algae, and there has been a lot of damage to the formations over the years.  But it was what it was, and unique at least to Curaçao.  Perhaps the most interesting feature was the number and size of the highly poisonous Manzanilla trees which can cause severe blistering like poison ivory, or death if the fruits are ingested.  The guide said the Spaniards introduced these trees to trick invaders into poisoning themselves for defensive purposes, but kept them because of their rapid growth and shade.  Just don’t stand under them in the rain, or you may end up with a severe case of dermatitis.  

The weather forecast had called for a 60% chance of rain during the day.  Fortunately this had held off during most of our tour, but as we headed into Williamstad, the only city on the island to tour it’s waterfront and historic neighborhoods, the skies opened up and drenched the island.  Instead of doing a walking tour through some of the historic districts, we ended up just doing a driving tour.  There are lots of very interesting looking neighborhoods, and the main harbor has a unique floating bridge that opens by pivoting from one end using a motor and propeller to swing the bridge to one side along the bank to open large enough for vessel traffic to get around.  We had wished we could have gotten out of the bus to take some pictures of this part of town, but time was short and there was no parking suitable for our bus to allow such a stop.  We saw enough of Williamstad to want to do a future walking tour of the harbor and downtown areas the next time we are in Curaçao.  

We got back aboard and got cleaned up for dinner in the dining room.  They had turkey, ham, beef tenderloins and tiger prawns on the Christmas Day menu which were all delicious.  The Showtime program was a special Christmas production with the band, singers and dancers. It appears that the dance troupe has been cut from the usual 6 dancers to only 4 for this cruise, but they had 5 vocal leads, and did quite a few popular holiday song and dance numbers. 

There was a I’ll Take Trivia for 100 gameshow, but since we had last played it, they had substituted bizarre question categories (TV Families, Is it Legal, You Think You’re a Loser, Dynamic Duos and Dumb Crooks) and ignored the value categories, assigning each question either one or 2 points.  For Dynamic Duos, you had to give the character and actor names of duos from several movies, and we were surprised at how hard it was to come up with character names in such popular movies as Dumb and Dumber and Lethal Weapon.  Did you know that in Nebraska, you can be put in jail if your child burps out loud during a church service?  Or did you realize that it is not illegal to drive at night blindfolded in Arkansas?  Needless to say, we didn’t win that one.  There was a more conventional Beatles trivia, but this one had questions where you had to identify the name of the album and year released from album cover art.  There was one Beatles savant in the back of the room all by himself who scored a perfect score to win that.  

Tomorrow is Bonaire, where we have a catamaran snorkel sailing excursion.  It is also our last port of call before we return to Fort Lauderdale, so it’s a bit sad to realize our Christmas Cruise is about to wrap up soon.