Today we had an island tour and sunset cruise scheduled. Since we had to be down by the security building to meet Aida (with Curacao Tour and Taxi) at 9:00 it was another up and at ’em early this morning. Bob still wasn’t feeling good but oiled up, took some ibuprofen and muddled through. Aida came highly recommended on tripadvisor.com. It sure didn’t take us long to see why. She was happy, enthusiastic and eager to make this a fabulous day for us. She combined two groups of us (totaling 10 in all) into her van and we were off to our first stop, the flamingos. We actually got to see some this time! Aida was the one who wanted to get this group shot of us all together. She happily chatted and narrated all kind of things to us about her island as we passed buildings and landmarks. 



The local language (on all the ABC islands) is Papiamentu which is a mixture of English, Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese. Her accent is heavy and you can see how hard she works digging deep for the English words, always asking if we understand. She was so cute and eager to please it would’ve been impossible not to fall in love with her.

Our next stop was the Hato Cave and our guide there was just as enthusiastic in his tour. We’ve seen quite a few caves in our day and this one didn’t stand out as much different, except it was above ground instead of underground. But our guide did his best to make it memorable for us. The allotment of time was about 30 minutes and I had feeling he could’ve spun tales about the cave for another half hour at least. When we got back to the van, Aida had cold bottles of water waiting for us that hit the spot. (Well that was a first, I just spilled an entire cup of water all over myself and Bob – yes I’m journaling on the plane. Now we’ll both look like we wet our pants until they dry – can’t make this stuff up. Thankfully my keyboard still works.)

Next she took us by the Curacao Liqueur Company where we tasted some of the coffee and orange liqueur. I would’ve loved to bring home several bottles of the coffee liqueur – it was amazing. I’ll have to look at home and see what I can get. They also had this aloe stuff you spray on your skin that’s wonderful for sunburns. Aida had a blast spraying it on each of us. She is so damn cute!


Our last stop was Mambo Beach where we got to relax and chill for about 2-1/2 hours. Since Bob wasn’t up to par, he wasn’t planning to go in the water and I didn’t want to wear my swim suit all day (but I did take it with me) so we just enjoyed sitting in a lounge chair chilling. DE and Sarah went out and, surprisingly, actually saw some fish while snorkeling. We had been told there wasn’t much good snorkeling on the island. Aida picked us up around 2:00 and took almost another hour getting us back to the ship because she wound around the city showing us lots of government buildings and telling us more stories. She is from Dominican Republic but has been in Curacao for 38 years. Her daughter, Doraluz, joined her on this part of the trip and I’m telling ya, she is precious. Aida is a mom of four with Doraluz the third child (and her princess we were told). The relationship between the two was priceless. Doraluz kept interrupting Aida to add a little tidbit of this or that and would then apologize. She did this so many times. We got such a kick out of them. There are some people that you just don’t forget when they touch your life. These two are in the category for us. We’d love to hook up with them just for lunch the next time we’re on the island even if we don’t need any kind of tour. (Trivia: Years ago the current governor claimed he got migraines because of all the white buidings – they were too bright – and issued a degree that everyone was to paint their building any color but white. Later they discovered the boy owned the paint store. True story. But it sure makes for a colorful island!)


It was around 3:00 by the time we got back to the ship so we had about 1-1/2 hour to get cleaned up for the sunset cruise. The sunset cruise we tried to get out of. The wind was whipping and the water had white caps. It sure wasn’t the kind of water we pictured for a sunset cruise when we planned this. (Little did we know, at this point, that there wouldn’t be much about this excursion that matched the picture in our heads.) As we figured, there is a 24 hours cancellation policy so we were going rough water and all. (Hahaha, I just got my replacement cup of water – it has a top on it.)


This is our catamaran for our sunset cruise. Looks more like a ferry.


From the moment we stepped aboard to the moment we stepped off there was nothing personal about the entire two hours. Oh, we did have live music though! If you can call it that. The guy singing had a karaoke set up. FRO. He had a nice voice but oh dear Lord the choice of songs was slowly killing me. Seriously, the most currrently song he sang was Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” and man he butchered it. Most of the others weren’t too bad but I guess we were way too young to appreciate them. It was painful y’all. And it went on for most of the two hours we were on the boat. Initially, we were rockin’ and rollin’ until we turned the corner into the harbor. It smoothed out nicely and the evening got a wee bit brighter – for a few minutes while we saw the beautifully colored restaurants, hotels and shopping areas. Guess what was left of the harbor from that point on? The drydock. The oil refinery. The shipyard. Tankers. Oil ships. I guess that was the trade off. Rough water or fugly scenery. The captain took his sweet time milking it too. Neither the captain nor any of his crew showed much personality at all. They didn’t smile much or interact with the passengers except to pass out drinks and finger foods. There was plenty of that to go around. We saved our appetite for that special dinner in town we were looking forward to since we were in port until 11pm that night. When the sun started going down the captain did slow it down and pretty much drift allowing us to enjoy the sunset, which turned out to be a pretty one. We got back to the dock and exited the boat without so much as a word of welcome or thank you from the captain or anyone else. So all in all it wasn’t horrible but we certainly woudn’t do it again. Box checked. Been there, done that. Seems like every excursion we’ve booked through the ship is like that. But the ships have monopolies on some of this stuff. This sunset cruise was one of them. There wasn’t anything to be found except what you could book through the ship. Sucks. (Video to follow.)


We walked toward what we thought was the direction of all the cafes and eateries. It was quite a little hike. Got this cool shot of the ship lit up though.


Honestly, we couldn’t find much and ended up a this little Italian cafe (Di Zabbia) inside of an old fort (Rif Fort) that had been turned into a shopping and cafe or bar area. Most of the menu was in Italian, with a size 2 font in a dimly lit setting. There was no way I could read any of it. Bob managed to find a Margarita Pizza so we ordered that with a local beer for him and glass of wine for me. It took a good 20 minutes to get my wine, then it was a blush wine, not Pinot Grigio. Whatever. I drank it. The service, or at least the guy we got, was pretty poor. I don’t think he spoke much English. And this authentic Italian margarita pizza had some tomato sauce on it with a little bit of mozzarella (not fresh) and some kind of chopped green stuff that wasn’t basil. Really? It was not bad, it just wasn’t what we expected from a place like this. We ordered some Tiramasu for dessert and it was ok too. The ship’s was better. Since we had time and we were enjoying the setting and warm breeze, we each got another drink (got a real Pinot Grigio this time) and just sat there soaking in the evening listening to a live band playing Latin music.


Got back to the ship around 9:30 and it’s such a let down to see these …


I worked on journaling and played some Kenny. We really needed some Kenny after that evening. Tomorrow is a sea day. Looking forward to the down time. Couple of shots pulling away from the pier: