Curaçao
View of Mt Christoffel, old salt plantations, and one of several large bays that line Curacao’s south coast. Photo taken from Santa Martha Bay overlook.
When we started talking about doing this trip, Matt asked if we could start with a relaxing beach honeymoon. After some research on different carribean islands, we settled on Curacao, a Dutch island off the coast of Venezuela. It is part of the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao). Little did we know, that we would in fact be transported to a tropical Holland. Everyone greeted us with “Hallo!” and immediately spoke Dutch to us. Every sign, menu, website, etc is in Dutch and 95% of the tourists are right off the 10hr direct flight from Amsterdam! But never fear, everyone also knew English in addition to the local language and Spanish.
We stayed at the very tropical, very cool Kontiki Beach Resort. Our first full day was spent enjoying the resort life and recovering from an exciting but slightly stressful last two months. We were able to get a beach side massage, enjoy the local Brasa beer, and walked down Mambo beach for dinner.
We have been looking forward to scuba diving at Curacao since booking our flights! Curacao is known for dense coral reefs just off the shore, amazing visibility, and beautiful small to medium fish. We completed 4 shore dives and had great visibility (100+ feet) even at 60ft deep! We dove at Piscadera Bay, Water Factory, Kokomo Beach, and Snake Bay. We saw lionfish, parrotfish, porcupine puffer fish, trumpet fish, and large schools of blue and yellow fish. The first dive site is also a coral reef research center and we were able to see coral being grown and planted to help learn coral rehabilitation strategies!
On our first night there, our waitress told us to make sure we rent a car and drive out west to see the real Curacao. So after each scuba morning, we spent time exploring the island. Matt rented a manual Suzuki S-presso and off we went! We were able to beach hop along the southwest coast to see amazingly clear blue beaches. We visited Grote Knip, Kleine Knip, and Playa Jeremi. We grabbed a Heineken at Playa Lagun and found some seaglass at Playa Santa Cruz. Matt saw a lookout point listed on the map and we happened upon Santa Martha Bay lookout point at golden hour! What a spectacular sight!! You could see an old salt plantation on the left, Mt Christoffel in the distance and the beautiful rolling landscape that makes up Curacao. Finally we spent sunset at Playa Porto Marie, which is know for their wild pigs, although we didn’t get to see any.
The next day we spent time in the capital Willemstad to see the Queen Emma Pontoon Bridge (it swings back to open up for ships entering!), the cute Dutch houses and walk around town. We had been searching for fresh seafood and finally found it at De Visserij (The Fishery). It’s a local place near where we were diving where the workers fish Tuesday to Thursday and operate the restaurant Friday to Monday. The fish is brought off the boat, cleaned, fillet and then put in a display case up front. You pick your fillet of fish (we got red snapper and tuna) and they cook it for you. Ocean to table!
Our last full day was spent on a Jeep Tour to see the North side of the island and Christoffel National Park. The north side of the island is very rocky with rough seas that create blow holes for the water to spray through! Mt Christoffel is the tallest point on the island, measuring 325m above sea level, and has some pretty intense trails to drive through.
Overall, Curacao exceeding our expectations! Our resort was amazing and we will definitely be having culture shock as we switch to hostels. The Dutch immersion brought me back to my childhood and we even found some stroopwaffles at the grocery store! And the beaches, bays, and fauna of the west was breathtaking! What a great start to our trip and we hope to be back!