Curacao

I've had a reminder set since the second week in January that has been nagging me to put together a quick piece on our trip to Curacao so that I wouldn't forget stuff about it. Four months later I'm finally getting around to it, so we'll see how much I actually remember.

Basically, I decided back in November that Paige and I should go somewhere in the Caribbean right after New Year's because Hollis had to head back to A&M a lot earlier than he ordinarily would. I have a conference every year in mid-January, but the time between New Year's and then is pretty dead on campus, so a quick trip seemed like a decent enough idea.

And it was.

After a couple weeks of painstaking research - largely trying to figure out a place light on tourists and heavy on right-off-the-beach snorkeling - I decided on Curacao. In case you aren't familiar with it (I wasn't), Curacao is one of the three Dutch "ABC" islands about 40 miles off the coast of Venezuela. I'd heard people say that it's like being in the Netherlands but in the Caribbean, but the only real parallels I could see were the language (occasionally) and the fact that there are some typically Dutch colorful buildings in Willemstad.

Anyway, we left on January 2 and stayed for five nights. It's an easy trip - less than 3 hours to Miami from KC and then maybe 3 hours from there to Curacao. Recommended rental car company is Advance Car Rental. They're not actually at the airport, but they have a guy there who drives you across the street to where they keep the cars. It looks a little sketchy at first, but the online reviews are uniformly positive, prices are great and include insurance, and the guy who runs the place is super-nice. We were in and out in like three minutes and had no issues on either end of the transaction.

We spent the first couple of nights at the Villa Tokara Boutique Hotel just outside of Willemstad, which is the main population center on the island. It's probably a 20-minute walk from the hotel to Willemstad proper. I walked down there one afternoon by myself when Paige was doing something else, but didn't really see much to recommend it. I mean if you're on a cruise ship and get off and want to look at shops or whatever I guess it's fine, but I wouldn't wanna do either of those things so obviously the appeal wouldn't be great for me. The hotel is nice and is easy walking distance from several good restaurants (Soi95 was particularly noteworthy), but mainly we just used the first couple of nights to kind of get accustomed to the area before heading off to the northwest part of the island.

Before doing that, though, we did go to one secluded south-side beach - Director's Bay, which is maybe a 25-minute drive from Willemstad. The beach is public but used to be owned by the top brass at Shell Oil Company. Snorkeling was decent here, but I think it could be rough if the wind and waves weren't right. There were only two other people on the beach when we went, and it was an easy place to get re-accustomed to snorkeling. Speaking of which, Diep Curacao is your best bet for renting gear. They'll bring gear to you and pick it up from you anywhere in Willemstad, and they rent for a fraction of the cost of the dive shops. Director's Bay is also very close to Fort Beekenburg, which is a 300+ year-old castle (remains of a castle, anyway) that was built to protect the bay. There isn't a whole lot to do there, but it's kinda cool nonetheless.

After a couple nights in kinda-sorta Willemstad, we headed an hour or so to the far northwest corner of the island to our digs at Landhuis Klein Santa Maria. We were there for three nights and had an absolutely terrific time. It feels more like a guesthouse than a hotel -- a couple of big upstairs rooms and then maybe 2-3 smaller rooms downstairs and a separate casita type thing on the other side of the parking lot. There's a restaurant on-site serving good, typically local fare (verrrry much on island time, of course), and the setting is wonderful. The fourth shot below is from the outdoor restaurant area where we had dinner every night, right around sunset. All that and the price is less than you'd have to spend at a Holiday Inn in Lawrence. No joke.

We spent our three days in the area snorkeling different beaches, reading outside at the hotel with the lizards and parakeets, driving around exploring random areas, and just hanging out. The beaches we hit were Playa Jeremi, Klein Knip, and Grote Knip. All three are in protected coves with coral on both sides and water gradually getting maybe 30-40 feet deep. Snorkeling from the beach in these spots is simple, and the variety of fish is outstanding. On a couple of the days we probably saw 70-80 different species, and at Playa Jeremi we spent some time swimming with sea turtles as well. Plus, there just weren't very many people around. There are larger beaches closer to Willemstad where you can hang out with 1,000+ of your closest friends, but it seems that nobody wants to drive an hour. Hallelujah.

We also went to Shete Boka National Park, which is on the northeast coast, to see a couple of the areas where the surf is rough and big waves do their thing. Doing anything at all in the water on the windward side is a total no-go but it does make for some interesting viewing. We also spent some time driving through Christoffel National Park, and I probably would try to carve out another day to do some hiking there if I were to go back again.

I guess that's about it. If you're thinking about some sort of island adventure that is easy, relatively affordable, and less touristy than most places, I can highly recommend Curacao. I'm hoping we can do something like this every year after New Year's, but with different islands. Man plans and God laughs, of course, but we'll see how things go.

Cheers,

Mike