Day 1
I left at 3 AM on Saturday morning to catch my flight to Curaçao. We only had to wait a little over an hour to check in at the airport and our flight was only an hour late, but otherwise everything went smoothly. The original plan was I was going to wait for Lane at the airport since he reserved the rental car. Unfortunately his flight got cancelled. Luckily he was able to get another one for later that night. So instead I took a cab to our place and spent the day exploring the neighborhood/pool. By the time Lane arrived, nothing was open so we had a clif bar and fritos for dinner along with our champagne toast provided by the hotel. We are just so fancy.
I enjoyed reading at the pool club.
The neighborhood was pretty cool. It is slowly coming back, so many of the abandoned buildings are completely being redone and it is actually a really cute area. Lots of character.
Our abode where we stayed all week.
Day 2
Unsuccessfully finding a place that served brunch we found ourselves at the Pirate Bay for a makeshift brunch. After refueling, we started our exploring! And my sandal broke so I was walking like a zombie for a while.
Outside of the Pirate Bay
The first beach, Caracasbaai
We stumbled on Fort Beekenburg, beautiful.
We watched the sunset over drinks at the Scuba Lounge.
We walked to downtown Willemstad hoping to find lots of dining options for dinner, but was surprised to find there wasn't that much. One restaurant right by the ferry must have really wanted some business because they offered to make me a special vegetarian meal. It was a vegetable curry dish and it might have been the best meal I had all week.
Yay tourists!
On the floating bridge
Following dinner we tried to have Sunday Funday by going to Mambo Beach. Sunny, the toothless guy who suckered me into buying a planter he made, recommended it when I asked where we could find some live music. Mambo Beach was definitely the place to be on a Sunday night but there wasn't any live music (just club style DJs) and the drinks were really expensive. We ended up bailing pretty early.
Day 3
Monday was completely a beach day! First we had to search some tourists shops for a road map because the car rental place was out of GPS devices and the car didn't even come with a map. Then we were off to the other side of the island. On our way to our first beach destination, we passed by a flamingo community! I was pretty excited.
Me posing like a flamingo, obviously
We spent most of the afternoon at Playa Porta Mari, where we had a great set up complete with lounge chairs, cooler, and umbrella. This was definitely one of my favorite beaches we visited. The water was very clear and there was a floating island that you can swim to.
Vacations are the best
Our clutch set up
I actually swam out to the floating island!
Later, we relocated to Daaiboooi Baai to try and catch the sunset, but we didn't stay there long because it was getting very buggy. Instead we went to the pool lounge to watch the sun go down.
Wandering goats on the side of the road
We climbed out to the end of the rock jetty to try and escape the bugs
Happy hour at St. Tropez Lounge
We finished the night by having dinner at Ginger's, which had a really great ambience, but I thought was food was mediocre for the price.
Day 4
Tuesday was my planned activity. We took an ATV tour of the west side of the island. I thought it was great. We had a really nice guide and there were two other, older, German gentlemen with us on the tour. We road all over for about four hours. We got to drive straight up to the wind turbines, check out a blow hole, snorkel a little bit, see the flamingos, and other gorgeous sites all while getting a little bit of history about the island. Lane and I shared one ATV because I didn't really care to drive and it worked out well because I took all the pictures while he drove.
Teamwork makes the dream work
So many awesome pictures!
Having fun speeding down the road
We didn't have time to catch the sunset this day and opted for sushi at the Mambo Beach area for dinner.
Day 5
We explored downtown Willemstad during the day on Wednesday. The location of our rental was almost perfect because we could walk to downtown, but we were close to some bars and restaurants in the Pietermai area. We went across the famous pontoon bridge, took postcard-like pictures of the colorful buildings, explored the floating market (all of the boats bring goods, mostly produce, from Venezuela to sell on the street), and the walked around the flea market. To be honest, I was surprised that there aren't very many restaurants or that much to do in downtown (that we saw anyway). There were cruise ships in the port nearly everyday, but I wonder what the people do all day.
Willemstad postcard picture taken by Lane
On the Queen Emma pontoon bridge
Since we quickly ran out of things to see downtown, we lounged at the pool for a little bit before getting ready for Lane's planned activity. We snagged one of the cool little cabana-cube things so we could lay out in the sun or the shade. Just writing about all of this makes me want to be back there!
Lane's activity was a sunset cruise, which I guessed correctly. While waiting for the captain of the catamaran to arrive, we saw a sea turtle in the marina!
I had a lot of fun on the boat ride. Alcoholic beverages and hors-d'oeurves were provided so it was a good time. First we rode around some of the mansions and private islands and then past a fort and then set up the sail and cruised back for the sunset. It was funny, as the sun was setting the crew put on romantic music and served champagne. Well, Lane spilled it all over my dress of course. We got off the boat feeling pretty good. We had to wait for the shuttle to take another group of people home first so we decided to get more drinks at the bar while we waited. Well the shuttle came back quickly and so the bar tender offered us "special cups" aka to-go cups for our beverages. I appreciated that.
Nice boat ride
Perfect timing for a barge to pass by...
We got dropped off at a restaurant near our hotel called Mundo Bizzaro so we decided to have dinner there. I got a mushroom risotto dish and more drinks and it was great. After dinner we went to a bar and played some darts. I started off okay, but got progressively worse. In the middle of the second game, I quit so Lane couldn't beat me again and we called it a night.
Day 6
Thursday was another full beach day. I will never get sick of those. We spent most of the day at Grote Knip Beach which was beautifully blue and not very crowded.
Me, never wanting to leave
Picture from in the water
After most of the day there, then we went to Playa Jeremi, which was a great choice. It was absolutely beautiful and we had the whole beach to ourselves to watch the sunset.
By the time the sun had gone down we were starving so we didn't even bother with showering, and we went to The Green Room mediterranean restaurant on the way home. We were looking rough and still in our bathing suits and the restaurant had a valet… You know, we like to keep it classy. It was so good. Then we got back to the hotel to realize we (...I) somehow lost the garage opener remote and the keys to our room. It was an $80 accident and so Lane wouldn't let me hold on to anything important the rest of the trip.
Day 7
Friday was full of adventure. First we went to Shete Boka National Park, which I would highly recommend, it had some pretty neat sites. It started raining right when we got to the park but we didn't let that stop us, we just explored in our bathing suits. Of course as soon as we walked to the first site, the weather cleared up and everyone else was in normal clothes and looking at us funny. Just another example of us keeping it classy. This was followed up by us taking the little rental car through big mud puddles in the dirt road.
Blow hole
Pretty rocks
Natural Bridge
Iguanas
The cave
Next we went to Playa Forti where the cliff jump is located. We couldn't find exactly where the jumping point was so we stopped inside this run down, half-house, half-restaurant, complete with chickens walking around, slanting into the ocean place. The food was truly authentic, the view was incredible and the beer was cold. We saw sea turtles and we found the jumping point on behind the patio. We weren't going to jump unless we saw someone else do it first though. By the time we finished lunch, we still hadn't seen anyone jump and were about to be disappointed. But then a guy just walked over and jumped without any hesitation. Then another guy went. Then Lane went. I was too afraid. Even after Lane said it wasn't bad. I was less afraid of jumping and more afraid of what might be in the water below and the swim back to shore. Maybe next time.
Paradise
After all of the exciting adventuring we went to Playa Lagun and took a nap. It was a small beach but there were a lot of people snorkeling so there must have been a lot to look at in the water. We went back to our hotel before sunset but we didn't have time to find a place to watch it, so we took our bottle of wine and watched the sun go down in an alley way…
Then we freshened up and went to Tandori Heights, a really good indian restaurant, for dinner.
Day 8
Sadly, this was our last full day of vacation. We spent it lounging on the beach of course. Most of the day was at Playa Cas Abao which is another one of my most favorites. I think this is the beach where I spent the most time in the water.
Gorgeous
Yay so clear!
Never. Want. To. Leave.
The last beach we went to was Bluebaai, which turned out to be a private beach that you had to pay $8 a person to use, so once we got there we actually just got drinks at the bar so we didn't have to pay since we were only staying a little bit. The hammocks would have been really awesome to use though.
We probably aren't fancy enough
Since it was our last night, this was our nice dinner date night. We watched the sunset and had authentic cuisine at the waterfront BijBlauw restaurant near our hotel. It was really nice. Funchi was the only vegetarian option; it is a corn meal dish but it was alright. The view (and the company) was the best part.
Being fancy like always
Our last sunset
The End
Sunday was a sad day. We packed up and left the hotel around noon and went to the Waterfront Terrace in Willemstad for lunch before returning our rental car and heading for the airport.
The PICANTADOR
Lane and I got to fly together to Miami and we actually saw a really great sunset from the air. But then we departed ways so I could go home. I couldn't have asked for a better vacation :)
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