November 1st, 2020
We are still waiting for Colombia to open its borders. The airport is open, the country is re-opening business and a lot of activities after a long 6 month lockdown. However, the maritime border is still closed. Latest news was they would open first of November but it did not happen. So that gave us more time to keep exploring Curacao
The Christoffel National Park in Curacao
Christoffelpark is the largest national park of Curacao. The park has a rich variety of local flora and fauna. Nature lovers will find the park teeming with local birds and plants, including species, which are not easily seen elsewhere on the island. For example wild orchids, the palabrua, the rare native barn owl. The Curacao White Tailed deer (of which there are only about 250 left). As we are in the rainy season, we found many orchid flowers but not the deer.
It is recommended to visit the park in the very early hours of the morning because after it gets way too hot. In fact, after 10am they do not allow people to start climbing the mountain and the latest entrance is 1pm. So to follow the recommendations we made our way very very early. After a 4am wake up and one hour drive north, we arrived at the park at 6 am to start the walk. We had the sunrise on the road and when we started the climb the colours of the landscape were beautiful. Mt Christoffel is the highest point in the island at 372m. It is not a very complex hike but it does not have shade so it is easy to understand why they won’t let people up when it gets too hot. Halfway to the climb it started raining, not just a tiny bit but a big tropical downpour. We got completely soaked. I did mention there was no cover, right?!! The good thing is we were almost dry by the time we got to the top. The rain was strong but it didn’t last long.
If you are ever in the vicinity, I recommend the walk. The views from the top are fantastic. That is what I call a good ratio, not too much effort for a great reward.
On our way down we saw people starting to climb, it feels so much better to be going down, because by 9am it was really hot and with the rain it was super humid.
Afterwards, we drove around the park for more site seeing and great views. The Boka Grandi is another show off of nature. Magnificent!
Enjoy the video from Christoffelpark.
Chichi
So Who is “Chichi”? The character was inspired by the figure of the “big sister” nickname “chichi” and in a local Caribbean community- the older sister or favourite aunty of the family who is always there with a welcoming embrace. There is “Bubu” too! He was designed after the “big brother”, the first-born son of the family. They both sit, stand and even fly.
An artist originally from Germany created a craft company where local Curacao women could be creative. Nowadays, there are lots of sculptures of Chichi around the island or you can visit the workshop and paint your own as a souvenir. No limits, all ideas are welcome. Here are some of the creations I saw at the factory! And there are a lot more around town or even in some random streets.
Willemstad
It is the capital of Curacao. The city centre, with its unique architecture and harbour entry, is listed as UNESCO world heritage. The Queen Emma bridge is a pontoon across St Anna Bay. It connects the Punda and Otrobanda quarters. The bridge is hinged and opens regularly to enable the passage of oceangoing vessels. The process only takes a few minutes to complete for small boats when there are bigger boats there is a ferry to go across. The bridge is the longest of its kind in the world and it is now reserve to pedestrians. For traffic a bigger bridge with 4 lines was constructed and it is running since 1974. The Juliana Queen Bridge.
The architectural style of Willemstad is the perfect reflection of how the Dutch spent their wealth. Slowly the area started developing and in the 18th century, the other three neighbouring districts were built. Otrobanda on the other side of the bay, Pietermaai on the East, and Scharloo on the north side of Punda. Scharloo and Pietermaai were the homes of the wealthy, while Otrobanda was the neighbourhood of the working class.
The city centre is really well maintained with its colourful buildings. Full of shops, restaurants, banks and few office buildings. A bit deserted because of COVID. No cruise-ships and very few tourist are allowed in the island. So they have restricted working hours. But in any case a wonderful city to walk around during day or night. And of course not to miss the bridge opening and closing.
video bridge
Our office in town
In the middle of town, for times when it gets too hot and we needed to work we would visit “our office”. We found a really nice cafe just across the street from the Colombian embassy. Cafe bonchi. Difficult to decide if the best thing there is the cool Air Conditioning or their coffee, which they bring from Colombia (You know the best coffee in the world.) and it is roasted by them on site.
Their menu is very inviting and the service is excellent. We loved the set up and we would recommend the place without a doubt. They just opened the place after COVID lockdown so they have not been in business for very long but I’m sure they will do great as they have a very cosy place. Check out some of the fancy coffees and plates!!
Dive & Kite
If there is wind, it is a kite day; if there is no wind it is a dive day!
I think I mentioned before, there are 80 something sites in Curacao. We completed 50 dives. We repeated a couple of sites. Like Directors Bay, Snake beach as we did some night dives. We repeated Piskado and Mari ponpom, I loved those two because it is almost guarantee to find turtles.
The diversity is immense, water crystal clear with great visibility except when it rains, which is not very often. And the temperature of the water is 29 deg C.
On the kitesufing, Cedric is making a lot of progress he can go upwind now which is fantastic!
I couldn’t practice that much, the wind is stronger than Martinique and our kites are 10 and a 12. They are too big for beginners like me. I took a class with a 7 kite and had a lot of fun and made some more progress. I managed to get up and go. It is a fantastic feeling!!! We will see… maybe some other destination will bring us the opportunity to keep practicing.!!!
Klein Curacao
Just for a change of scenery and a bit of sailing. The Capitan and Happy Days don’t like to stay too long on the same place. And in Curacao unless you are in Spanish Waters there are only a 5 bays authorised to anchor in the whole island. Couple of therm not very interesting and one which could have been nice. However, it would have been difficult to come back against the wind. So instead we ask for permission to go to Klein Curacao for 3 nights.
Klein is small and almost inhabited, it gets more people during the day but after 3pm we had the island for ourselves. Such a nice and peaceful place, if the weather is nice. We heard some unfortunate stories of boats being in trouble in Klein when there is a “reversal” wind. There are only a handful of buoys and some of them are very close to the beach.
We had good weather for 3 days, a bit moving at night but not too much just like a baby’s cradle. Couple of dives, paddle board, photography, some fishing from the back of the boat, time for planning (sorry planning is a word out of the 2020 vocabulary) some maintenance and of course nice sunsets and stars at night.
Very nice three days of complete change of activities!!
So the question is … where to next?
Answer is……. after some suspense!!!! Bonaire! Curacao has been fabulous a lot more than expected. History, nature, blue, green, wind, food… and more.
Thanks… Dushi Korsou!!
PD: Colombia’s maritime border is still closed. Now extended to December 1st. Therefore we will wait a bit more and visit another island.
Happy Days 