On the one hand we got to see some beautiful tropical sights, and get all the free curacao liquor samples that we could handle, but on the other hand, the tour guide had this insatiable need to fill every second of the tour with meaningless jabber. I am now fully qualified to tell you what happened at every single bus stop on the island since 1903, and how many years his wife has left until retirement at her government job.
Our first few stops were just picking up other people on the tour, and the guide mentioned some local history of... the banking district. He took us past some old buildings that had 'building cancer' which i thought was a very unusual way to say 'dry rot', and he showed us a big yellow building that was currently being used for car fines and ticket payments. I found it fairly amusing that it was a Jewish church just 30 years ago. I'm sure that there's a joke in there somewhere about money...
Straight after that we went to the distillery for the famous curacao liquor which is made from the rinds of oranges that grow only in curacao. Supposedly you can grow the plants in other countries, but due to the different acidity levels of foreign soil the fruits turn out bitter and consequently the booze made from it isn't particularly nice.
I didn't quite buy the glamorous story of how the liquor was invented since it's far too close in composition to 'Pruno' (prison alcohol made by convicts by fermenting fruit in garbage bags) :-s
The distillery was literally a madhouse. Put the word 'free' in front of anything and people will be literally selling their own mothers to get to it. There were trays and trays of the stuff (it wasn't likely to run out anytime soon), but it didn't stop the pushing and shoving. It was like the edmonton IKEA opening all over again. Memories of people swinging nun-chucks for bargain sofas springs to mind...
This was the reception desk where you could get information and also as much free dried coconut as you could handle.
After the distillery, we began driving to 'Hato Caves'. On the way the tour guide stopped abruptly (and woke the 10 of us that had fallen asleep). I wondered what was going on, and had a giant cactus pointed out to me by Marcel. There were four or five vultures sitting on top of it, looking at us with hungry eyes. I would have gotten off to take a closer look, but i know i look tasty so i didn't.
Never missing a photo opportunity, i took a few shots as we got off. We visited the caves the last time that we came to curacao, but it was soggy and wet, and there was a very real flooding (and therefore drowning) hazard which put off everyone but the few people with a point to prove, slipping around the cave in their flip flops.
This time it was gorgeous. From the viewing platform on the lower level, you could feel the mist from the waves in the air, and hear them crashing into the rocks. On the higher level was a view of the island stretching into the horizon.
After that we went to a hotel and resort for lunch called 'Hotel Kura Hulanda Watamula'. I chose the 'tropical dream burger' which consisted of blue cheese, pineapple slices, jalapenos and about 20 other ingredients that i couldn't quite put my finger on. Was tooo good. I didn't think that i'd like blue cheese but it was melted and not too strong). Delicious! My dads string of bad luck didn't improve though: his burger was 10 minutes late, but we got a round of free drinks (fresh lemonade) so i personally felt it was worth it.
This shot was taken inside the eating area. The roof was literally made from leaves. I don't know how it was staying up.
After the meal, we drove past a few other beaches, and saw some flamingos. Oddly enough all of my flamingo knowledge comes from centerparcs in england. Supposedly the babies are grey, and they get their colouring solely from their diet. If they don't get enough bacteria and beta carotene from their diets, their colour fades. Pale flamingos are under-nourished. I noticed that all of the flamingos i saw were quite pale (barely standing out from the mud), which i wasn't too happy about.
Following our flamingo encounter, our last stop-off was the beach. Nobody on the bus was prepared for this (aside from three very mature ladies from Florida), so we all sat around and i listened to music for the 40 minutes that we were there. It was beautiful though, and i'm really looking forward to our day at the beach today.
That's about it for today. Coming up in the next post will be candid photographs of unsuspecting people at the beach, and i will try to avoid taking pictures of the five ice creams that i'm likely to have today.
Siobhan x
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