Curaçao - Thursday, Feb 12

On Thursday we sailed into Curaçao. Jon had been there several times before, and I had been there once. When we were stationed in Tucson, 2004-2006, Jon's job was overseeing AF units in the southern region, and one of those was in Curaçao. We loved it then, and it was fun to go back and experience it from a different perspective.

Our Tours by Local guide was Helvig. She was born and raised in Curaçao  and attended college at Baylor University. Of course we asked why she went to Baylor...Her family had traveled in the U.S. every year, and she liked the climate in Texas. Also, her mom ran a school board so she was basically the daughter of the teacher’s boss. She wanted to go somewhere that no one knew her. That’s why she chose Texas. She wanted to study psychology and all the teachers told her mom Baylor was the best school for that in Texas. She did not know about Southern Baptists and she said it was very much a culture shock.She graduated in 1987 and lived in the Northwest for a while before moving back to Curaçao. She said now she is a social liberal, but is still a fiscal conservative. She likes the fact that Republicans leave you alone  

Her dad's family has been in Curaçao since the 1850's; her mom's side since before the 1700s. 

She has been a guide 6+ years; before that she had many, many careers... “Once it becomes routine, I get bored." She was a business major at Baylor (apparently she didn't stick with psychology). When she got into tour guiding, she started on busses. She began her business in late 2021. She still occasionally helps out bus tours Her husband was military, and now is a lawyer. 

The capital of Curaçao is Willemstad. The first place she took us was the historic downtown, which is a world heritage site. (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/819) It's known for its floating pontoon bridge and the European buildings. I found one geocache there; I didn't try to get any other geocaches on the island. 

She took us to an alley of murals. She knows the artist, an amputee, who puts her brush on a broomstick to paint the murals. 

I dictated notes on my phone while we walked around. Sometimes I just put the microphone on and let it type what she said. But now that I'm editing it, a lot of it is very confusing. Hopefully I've made sense of it:

-Older homes were built with limestone which contains fossilized coral, and the salt causes blisters and is very high maintenance. Therefore locals don’t want to live in them.  Now investors buy the houses and renovate them for Airbnb’s

-There are five bridges (https://www.curacao.com/en/article/bridges/ - this link mentions only three bridges); all have names of female royalty except the Smith Bridge, which was named after Leonard B Smith. (https://evendo.com/locations/curacao/scharloo/attraction/leonard-b-smith-brug). He lifted them into the 20th century. According to Helvig, he was important in providing blocks of ice, built a desalination plant, brought in electricity and built the Queen Emma bridge with his own money.  He came in the 1880s; the two sides of the city were separated by ocean water. When he came, the only way to cross was on hired row boats. So he built the pontoon bridge. 

Carillon-replica from Prague; still plays every hour and a half hour. Interesting that the building was a different color in this website I found:

 https://1000awesomethingsaboutcuracao.com/2012/09/21/935-curacao-23-bell-carillon/

She called the Penha building the "crown jewel" of the buildings. She said it's the most ornate. I don't have a picture of it. Here's a website that explains more and has a full picture:

https://www.inyourpocket.com/Curacao/stepping-into-the-rainbow-charm-of-historic_79873f

Here's the Tommy Hilfiger store. The color is Curaçao baroque, and it's only found here. 

Below is the oldest Protestant church, built in 1769. The tower was built in 1903. During the last real hurricane, 1877, lightning struck tower; The church was upstairs and a weapons depot was downstairs. If you enlarge the picture you see a circle on the left side, under the roofline. It is actually a cannibal; the cannonball was shot in 1800 by a captain Blythe. The English conquered this island in 1800 and they lasted until 1803; he shot the cannon and it got lodged in there and they left it in there,

In the picture below, the green and cream buildings, you can see that the gables are about 5 feet back because that used to be the storefront. Over time the owners added on, extending into the street. We talked a lot about the poor enforcement of building codes and how people ignore laws if they aren't enforced. 

While we were in town she took us to the synagogue and museum. This museum was one reason I found Curaçao the most interesting of the three islands. I have tons of pictures from there, and it was fascinating history. This is somewhat choppy as I try to interpret my notes: 

-The synagogue, built in 1732 is the oldest in the Americas. In 1790, 40% of “free white people” were Jewish. It also has the also oldest cemetery; most gravestones are eroded beyond recognition because the oil refinery was built by a cemetery  Gravestones are in Portuguese, not Hebrew...Portuguese was the language of this synagogue until about 100 years ago.

-This picture shows the sand on the floor. During the inquisition, the Jews had to convert to Catholicism. But they still held services, and would put sand on the floor to muffle the sound. So they still have sand on the floor in remembrance. 

-The synagogue is a replica of the synagogue in Amsterdam; it is 2/3 of the size. All the furnishings are mahogany - it is the only wood that didn’t get termites.  

-This is the oldest Torah, from 1320.

-Helvig gave us her perspective on the migration of Jews to Curaçao: The US was built by people who wanted to start a new, and different, life.  The people who went to South America from Europe wanted keep our way of life. This appealed to Jewish mindset. When the Dutch Jews moved there, they went from being the poorest in Amsterdam to richest on Curaçao  

-Here's a picture of the Jewish history of Curaçao. 

An explanation of the european Jews coming to Curaçao. 

The new temple.

There was a ceremonial bath with this sign. 

An explanation of how Jews treated slaves. 

 

An explanation of the Diaspora

Language explanation

This book looked very interesting. I didn't take a picture of the front, but here's a link

https://a.co/d/0j59FKCu 

-There was lots of info on George Maduro. He was sent at 12 to Netherlands for education, was part of the resistance during WWII and died in Dachau. There were several books on him, including this one and a graphic novel. 

They have a different tradition at weddings; instead of stomping on a glass, they smash it on this silver platter. The sign below explains. 

A couple notes I made at the museum:

-Papiamentu started here-common Portuguese roots between Jewish and Portuguese slaves

-There were pictures of the royal family because the royal family has always protected the Jews and so the congregants say prayers for the family. 

After the downtown, she took us to the Curaçao liqueur distillery. https://www.curacaolikeur.nl/en/pages/bezoek-de-distilleerderij/

-When Spaniards came, they brought sheep, goats, and oranges, but oranges did not thrive in rocky soil and no water. Even the goats wouldn’t need them. But the liqueur uses the rind. She said they can’t trademark the name because it’s a country so they trademark the shape of the bottle. Curaçao liqueur is famous for it's blue color, but now it's made in different colors and flavors.   

I took pictures of the history signs. 

Here are some random notes from the day:

-All three islands the guides talked about Papiamento. Helvig said that 20+ years ago the official language in schools in Curaçao were switched from Dutch to Papiamento. Now Arubans speak better Dutch.

-Gomez - He was instrumental in drafting constitution; before that all islands called the colony Curaçao; he came back with new ideas and fought for independence. I found this website that explains it better:

https://mediatorsbeyondborders.org/the-trailblazer-bringing-mediation-to-curacao-member-spotlight-carlos-oscario-da-costa-gomez/

-She talked a lot about the refinery, because it really impacted the island. It is still there, but has not been in use since 2019, when Maduro closed borders between Venezuela and islands. One reason the put the refinery on the island was the huge port. 

-there are an estimated 15,000 Venezuelans, about 10% of populated

-Unemployment was 13% now it’s down to seven or eight but it’s still high Our tourism has tripled in the last four years so a lot more people have picked up a lot, but the types of jobs you have in tourism don’t pay. Cleaning rules it’s it’s serving at restaurants. It’s bartending its protests-You know, what are we doing? There’s still a large portion of the population. That is poor. Tourism wealth not trickling down to everybody there’s a lot of Dutch vs locals

-We walked by a statue, Lady Gratitude. After World War II the Curaçaoans were very wealthy from refining oil for the allies and the Netherlands were destroyed, so they sent money and things to the mother country, who later sent this stature. I didn't take a picture, and this is all I could find online:https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g147278-d23992235-Reviews-Statue_Of_Thanks-Willemstad_Curacao.html

-After the Esther's car on Aruba, I asked about her car. Hers is a Chevrolet; she hasn’t bought a Chinese car yet because she’s not sure how long they will last. "I'm letting others do the research".

-There are a lot of container ships in the harbor because everything is imported

-Dutch get six weeks of paid vacation

-Their healthcare like Aruba – about 10% paid by patient, some by employer, rest by Curaçao government, not Netherlands. Like Aruba, if they can’t treat you on the island, you are sent to Columbia or Netherland. Her opinion: the system is going bankrupt.

-The island is 70% Catholic

-Aruba has less water and less rain, so fewer or no plantations.  

She drove us south to overlook the Bay of Caracas (https://curports.com/our-ports/the-ports/caracas-bay/). The main thing that sets Curaçao apart from the other two islands is it's ports.  Because the Bay of Caracas is super deep (something like 300m), can handle the biggest ships. It's also called Spaanse Water. As I try to translate my notes and use my (very poor memory): Spaniards used to shelter in the bay. The way it is situated, pirates didn't find them there. There is a narrow reef that protects the ships, and it is still a place that the wealthy bring their yachts in hurricane season. This is the area with the most expensive homes. She mentioned some $8-10 million homes and a Sandals Resort. 

I have another note about the indigenous people of Curaçao; The Spaniards shipped the indigenous people to Venezuela or to what is now the Dominican Republic. So when the Dutch came, there were only 150 people. 

In the picture below you can see the quarry. It used to be a mesa. The quarry was for guano, but then they discovered limestone. 

The picture below shows a tiny Dutch  marine base, the building with solar panels. It only has 200 men

I'm finally finished! I hope all that made sense. I really will try to be more timely in writing these in the future, because deciphering all my pictures and notes was very time-consuming and frustrating. 

A couple notes about the rest of the cruise. I really enjoyed getting to know some of my classmates. There were a lot more Christians in my class than I knew about, and we had some great conversations. I also really enjoyed Boz and TK, our travel companions. We may try to travel with them again in the future. 

Aruba - Wednesday Feb 11

In Aruba I started taking notes in a draft blog. Our trip was so busy that I never finished it. So now I'm going back through the notes I took, editing them, and trying to get this published. Because of the way I took notes (as we were driving), this reads a little choppy. And I may not do this again, b/c I'm having trouble formatting things. You will see different fonts, and I can't figure out how to fix them. Oh well. As I say, "done is better than perfect". 

When we got off the ship in Aruba, there was a smaller ship next to ours blocked in so I took a picture:

Our tour guide (from Tours by Local) was Esther. She was a native of Aruba. She attended college in the Netherlands, but didn't finish her degree. She then became a flight attendant for KLM-they were doing routes to South America, and were looking for “girls who can speak Spanish“

Esther's car was cool (it was pretty new) - I immediately noticed the whole roof is a sky light. She said it's also a solar Chinese hybrid, a Dongfeng Forthing. It had a full-roof skylight that is also a solar panel. She said it was 20% cheaper than Kia. She bought it 2025. She said that in Japan cars can’t be driven after six years. I checked that out, and it's actually just a cultural aspect. They do trade out their cars frequently. You can search it to find the many reasons. It means that they have lots of used cars available. According to Esther, even though the used cars are cheap, sometimes transportation to get them to the island is more than the cost of the car. That's why she went with the new Chinese model, instead. She is happy with the car so far, and likes the fact that it is a hybrid; she can get four tours on a tank of gas for $40. Before it was $40 for one tour.

Her car had two license plates, the T is for tour and the O is for Uber. She doesn’t use the Uber, but she can if she wants to.

She gave us some history of the island. The first oil refinery was built in 1924. 

By 1932 the population grew from 14,000 to 24,000 as people came in to work in the refinery. Her grandparents came from Bonaire. Before the oil refinery her grandparents would go to Cuba to work in sugarcane.

I love the individual tours from Tours by Locals. With one tour guide for the four of us, we get to ask lots of questions and get to know them a little. We saw the personality of the islands in the guides. Brenda (Bonaire) was very laid-back and relaxed. Esther not so much. Brenda asked us what we wanted to do. Esther had a plan and we pretty much stuck to it. She only stopped for pictures if we asked. But she was very organized and it was a good tour.

We talked a lot about the differences between the three islands. Esther said Bonaire is twice as big as Aruba with 1/5 the population. 28,000 versus about 110,000. TK asked which island is the best. "Aruba, of course." Curacao has more history. Bonaire is more low-key and Caribbean feeling. "Aruba has everything." Arubans don't like people from Curaçao; the Curacaoans (I had to look that word up; and notice the two different spellings. If I write on my phone it suggests the special c, but my computer doesn't). Anway, Esther said the Curacaoans call Aruba the dumb island, like a goat. Guides from all three islands said Curaçao has the best harbor.

Aruba doesn’t have much history since most people came here in the 1930s. Curaçao as been much history. Lots of Dutch and Jews. Now Aruba is wealthier because of tourism, so they have good social programs. The oil refinery closed 10 years ago. 

Walking around we talked about cruises and tourism. In Aruba everything opens at 10 AM. There are very few ships on Saturday and Sunday because it takes two days to get from Miami and most cruise lines depart on the weekends. The port can handle four ships.

Most natives (of all the islands) learn four languages. They learn Papiamento at home, are taught Dutch in school, and learn Spanish and English beginning in the 4th grade and take it through college. (When we got to Curacao, we found out it's a little different there...That will be in my next blog.)

Aruba has four high schools. Two for bright kids. Those are the kids that go to the Netherlands for school.

 We drove by Xavier university, a medical school for pre-med. People come from all over the world, because it’s cheaper and they have access to being a doctor in the US.

Aruba has more illegals per capita than any other country, she thinks. She estimated there are more than 20,000 illegals on the island. Most are from Venezuela. Aruba is only 20 miles from Venezuela. Because Venezuelan wages are less than $20 per month, they can come here and earn money for the whole year. Her perspective: Arubans are low-key and down to earth, and Venezuelans are very loud. So the Arubans don’t like them very much.

Aruba has only 2.5% unemployment. Hotels can’t reach full capacity because they don’t have enough workers. They have very good health insurance. Not free, but low cost. Employer pays some and government pays some.

She took us by Eagle Beach. She said it's number two on the world list for best beaches. It is 2 miles long and has parking along the length. Leatherback turtles come to the beach. They build their nests in April. She told us more, but I didn't catch it all. 

She also took us to Palm Beach. Esther said the water that day was “upset”. Normally the sea is very calm, and there is no seaweed on the beach.

Our bathroom stop. 

A church we stopped at. We took a couple pictures and then moved on. She gave us some history that I don’t remember. 

One reason the ABC islands are so popular is because they aren't in a hurricane belt. The last hurricane was in 1968. Hazel. And it was only a tropical storm.

I love this picture from north of Oranjestad, where we could see the rain over the city. 

Another picture of the rain over the ocean. 

 Jon, PK, Lois and I had been to Aruba once before, on our Panama Canal cruise. I knew Lois and I had done some geocaches, but I was surprised to see I had seven already! So I only got two more. TK really enjoyed geocaching. She found the second one, (I was looking in the wrong place). One of the geocaches was at Palm beach and the other was at Arashi Beach. This is a screenshot of my geocaches (the smiley faces are ones I found).

There are lots of cacti on the islands. Karl thought some of the cacti looked familiar, so he looked it up. What Brenda (in Bonaire)  had called candle cactus (see my blog from there) and Esther called Yatu are actually organ pipe cactus, the same ones we have in Organ Pipe Monument. 

She took us to an aloe processing plant. It was an interesting tour, but nothing remarkable.

They sold this product, which looked interesting, but was pretty expensive.

Here is a fancy hotel from Morocco and Spain next to the first hotel built in 1959. She took us by a lot of hotels and gave us the histories of when they were built, but I don't remember the details. 

She talked about the geography. The island is known for kite and windsurfing, but not regular surfing. That's all on the west side of the island b/c the east side is very rough and rocky. Here are several pictures from the east side of the island:

Here is picture of the California Lighthouse, on the north of the island. It was named after the SS California steamship that sank nearby in 1891. Built between 1914 and 1916, it's Aruba's tallest structure.

As you can see in some of the pictures, Aruba is very rocky. They don’t build foundations for the houses because there’s so much rock. And pools are very expensive because of the digging.

She drove us around the Tierra del Sol golf course Robert Trent Jones. It is being refurbished after recently being sold. 

Esther said Aruba is the safest island in the Caribbean because of the low unemployment and everybody is working. Karl asked about drug influence. She said they don’t feel it, but they know it’s a factor because they are so close to Venezuela and Colombia. They have a very busy airport.  The drug industry tries to use that busyness to disperse drugs. The US Coast Guard helps police the area. Aruba is the only place that is considered domestic flight to and from the US. No customs. (I looked it up - it's actually that Aruba has "preclearance", which means US customs officials are stationed there so you go through customs before boarding a flight. Aruba is one of 15 locations in the world. https://www.cbp.gov/travel/preclearance

In 2024 1.8 million people passed through the airport and stayed three days or more. 90% of those are from the United States. 

According to Esther: In Aruba, we import everything. Lemons even are cheaper to import them to grow. Garlic has 40% in important tax, Mercedes as 60%. Luxury cars like Ferrari have 100% import tax. 

As we listened to Esther, we questioned some of the things she told us. Another example of how I had to fact-check something she said: I asked if a building I saw was a mosque. Esther said mosques are not allowed in Aruba. Karl and I questioned that, so I googled it. There is a mosque in Aruba. it was completed around 2023. 

We noticed there was lots of traffic. She said everybody drives cars. We asked about taxis and she said those are for tourists. Prices are in dollars, so not affordable for the average Aruban.  

That's all I have from the tour. On the way back to the ship, TK and I stopped in the shop Mopa Mopa, because the artwork was very unique. We went in, and I was intrigued, so I bought a pen holder. The process is very interesting:

https://mopamopaaruba.com/historical-background/

That's all for now. I hope to finish the Curacao blog in the next couple of days.