Curacao
2003-03-04

Well, we woke up in Curacao, without ever feeling the boat move. When I looked out the balcony all I could see was blue and it took a few seconds to realize we were stopped. Weird sensation...

We ate ate breakfast in the formal dining room and it like all the food was wonderful. Then up to the Solarium for planning. The ladies had thier shopping guides and coupons and a map. We had a vague plan of crossing the pontoon bridge checking out the sights and finding a bar. We both suceeded.

Curacao is Dutch and less thaan 30 miles from the coast of South America. Downtown Williamstad is bursting in pastels. Even the giant bridge over the harbor is painted in blue and yellow. The pontoon bridge is at the mouth of the harbor and swings open and closed when the ships come in. IF you are on the bridge, you stay until the process is finished. No reason to hurry, now is there?

We all left the ship together and while the women split to follow their plan, we crossed the bridge and stopped at the first place for a beer. Our group had grown from four to seven and that was just a little too big for the smoothness of the day before. We still had a good time watching the (third) world go by.

Rich-it got up and when he got back he had a bag... He had been shopping. Just when we were ready to string him from the nearest palm tree, he produced a bag of Cuban cigars... Nice.. Now I don't smoke, bit an occasional cigar... These were good. So we lit up and went off to see the city.

The definate highlights were the open air market and the old fort. You could buy anything in the markeplace, meat, fish, fruit... None of it was refrigerated. The fish was purchased right off the boat and there was a guy who's only job was to swat the flies away. Now that is job security.

Some of the boys needed to use the bathroom and it cost $2 for the four of them to use a concrete ditch in the flea market building. There was a picture of a flower taped to the wall so we joked that the bathroom was free, but you paid for the art exhibit.

All this wandering can leave a fellow parched so we went in search of a watering hole. We stopped at the Casino, and then the connected hotel which had a beautiful rooftop bar over lookign the water, but it was closed. Then looking across we saw another rooftop bar in the old town fort. Score...

The bar must have been a local spot. Nobody spoke english and beer was less than $2 a bottle and ice cold. The view was worth a million. we only had one before we headed back for a late lunch and pool time. Again we met the woman at lunch. They showed their jewelry and stuff, we showed our beer bellies... Our sale was better than their sale :-)

We pulled away from the dock at 5:30 and headed off to St Martin.

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