Made it to Curacao after going through Montego Bay, Jamaica. I actually had to go through customs in Jamaica in order to catch my connection, but the lines were much shorter than they were in Miami when I was doing the Cayman’s connection and I got the cool Jamaican accent as an added bonus.
I had to walk outside from the arrival area to the check-in area so I actually set foot on Jamaican soil (or concrete) and breathed fresh Jamaican air. I usually get a magnet from any country I visit, but I figure the 20 minutes outside + the 2 hours in the airport don’t really count…so no Jamaican magnet. Gotta earn that $hit!
My brief taste of Jamaica walking from the "arrivals" area to the "departures"
I flew Cayman Airways from the Caymans to Montego Bay (all 45 minutes of the flight). Nice seats! Lots of leg room. It was still coach, but I can’t really complain. I flew Air Jamaica down to Curacao. You want to talk about grain of rice in the black bean soup, that was me. Not that there is anything wrong with that…its just I was for sure in the minority on that flight. In a counterpoint to Cayman Airways, there was no leg room, but I had the whole row to myself so I was able to stretch out a little bit. Plus they have Champagne service for their snack and beverage thingy. I didn’t have any champagne but there were a lot of bottles on their cart.
Customs in Curacao was a bit invasive. They actually pawed through my stuff a little bit. Of course the dude picked the suitcase with all my dirty clothes in it to check so I had some silent satisfaction when he was handling my dirty boxer briefs (and that answers that question). He had gloves on but still…
I am staying in the Limestone Holiday Apartments sort of south east of the main city, Willemstad. It has a little kitchenette and comes with a car rental (mine is a Suzuki hatchback).
MTV, pimp my ride! -or- cruisemobile Curacao style:
In my reservations communications (a bunch of emails back and forth) with the owner, Roel, he said there would be taxi 42 waiting for me when I got off the plane. I got off the plane, through customs, out the door and no taxi 42. As a side note, all taxis’ license plates start TX## so taxi 42 would be TX42…had it been there. I had printed out all the travel info for the entire trip (an excellent GTJTTOTD, btw…print out all your travel stuff especially if you did it all yourself…oh and Cammy was totally right! The Cayman’s GTJTTOTD shouldn’t have been walkling…it should have been look right, left and right when crossing the street since they drive on the wrong side of the road, the stuff coming from your right will be what hits you first) so I reread the ones dealing with here and it turns out the original flight was supposed to land at 3PM and it had since changed to 2PM. I was through customs by 2:30 so I leaned back to wait…relatively patiently, for TX42. I gave him until 3:30 and then found a taxi driver who knew where this place was (first lady had no clue), took the cab out here and was met by Roel’s dad (funny old dude…barely speaks English, but was making me laugh).
He led me to a 2 bedroom apartment (I had only booked a 1 bedroom), showed me around and told me Roel was running errands and would meet me shortly. When Roel finally showed up, he said he had me down as coming in the next day (even though my printed stuff said “23rd”) not that it was a problem, but the one bedroom apartment I had booked had someone in it. The one I was in was for some KLM (Dutch airliner I believe) people who might be coming in that night but were probably coming today. So I could use the 2 bedroom for a night and then move over to the 1 bedroom as long as the KLM people didn’t show up. Otherwise, there was this closet (okay not THAT bad, but pretty close) they could put me in for the evening. Hey, I am on vacation…so its all good. I slept in the 2 bedroom, got up and kept everything together today and then while I was out exploring the island, they moved my stuff over. No problems! Oh and it rains here. It’s a drive-by rain…pours for 10 minutes and then is clear, but it has been cloudy off and on all day.
View from my porch..not as good as Sunset House, but not too bad:
I went to the grocery store last night and barely got lost. All the streets are Dutchy and end in “weg” which I guess means street? To add to the confusion, maybe only half of them are marked and then the signs are facing the wrong way. It was an adventure getting out of town today (drove around the island) and I was totally going the wrong way before I finally found some street names, pulled over and poured over the map. Thank goodness for maps!
Anyway, grocery store…they have them here. They even have many of the same things we eat like Oscar Meyer products and Kraft cheeses. They also have a sliced meat section that had everything from salami to “tung” which, I think, is tongue. Sadly, there were no spaghettios so I am not sure I could make it here (kidding! Haven’t had those for a long time). They do have a beer aisle and we are back to Coca Cola Light (in 11oz cans instead of 12oz, but I don’t think that is why it is “light”). They do Amstel beer a lot here. Not Amstel light. That’s for wimps. They go full core Amstel in these 8.5oz bottles. I feel like a giant when I am drinking one. My hand wraps all the way around it. Funny thing is I didn’t see any Amstel Light. They have Amstel Bright, though so maybe that is the same thing? I thought that was a cool name no matter what the contents really were. The strangest thing I saw was canned hotdogs. They had a whole section of normally packaged hot dogs, but on the canned food aisle...canned hot dogs...yah know...for kids! I picked up some eggs, bread and sandwich stuff to try to keep my expenses down a bit while here. I mean why else do a kitchenette. Oh, the store doesn’t have bags for your groceries. You have to either bring your own, or they packed my stuff in a box that was available. The things you learn.
For those who care, the monetary unit here is the Gilder (same thing in the Netherlands, I believe) and it seems like the exchange rate is around 5 Gilders per $3 US…yep, just checked and its 1.66 Gilders per dollar. Most places so far accept Dollars and, once converted, it’s about the same price as what you can get in the US. The trick is they give you the change in gilders, though. Since Bonaire (my next stop) is also one of the Netherland Antilles, I went ahead and withdrew 200 gilders from an ATM…guess I need to check my bank account and make sure they only took out $120…if my calculations aren’t totally hosed. Its eastern time here, or at least I am 3 hours ahead of the west coast. Maybe they don’t do daylights savings. The locals speak Dutch (as do most visitors), a little English (thank goodness) and some patois of Dutch mixed with Spanish and maybe Portuguese? It's pretty lyrical whatever it is.
Today I took the advice of the place I am diving with (tomorrow I start 3 more days of diving) and drove around the island a bit. I got a little misoriented there at the beginning, but quickly got back on track. They drive on the right (correct) side of the road here and its my kind of driving. Out past the city, I didn’t see any speed limits…its more of a “what can your car handle on these crappy roads” kind of thing. Also, if someone is turning left and there is room to do so, pass them on the right even if there isn’t a real lane there. It’s the way driving ought to be…
I went to the National Park Shete Boka on the northwest point of the island. It’s a rocky coast kind of thing with big crashing waves and natural bridges carved by the ocean and things like that. It’s also a desert-like environment with lizards all over the place sunning themselves. Good times.
Dune....Arakis.....Curacao...Desert Planet...the worm is the spice...You shall be known as Mua'dib....okay enough Dune references...lots of cacti and lizards on Curacao:
Surf crashing against the rocky north shore of the island
I continued on to the poorly marked beach called Grote Knip (really…I sort of figured the turnoff was the right one based off the map and where I was…there was no sign…never was a sign…but one of the people at the beach said “Grota here” so I think I was in the right place). It’s on the southern coast of the island and the waters were glassy just 20 minutes after leaving Shete Boka on the north shore. The lesson here is: live on the south side of the island for calm waters. They said it was one of their most popular beaches and the turquoise water made me understand why. I really just stayed on the overlook above it, but looking down into the water, it was super duper clear. I think I am going to enjoy the diving tomorrow assuming there is sea life and/or good looking reefs…we will see.
The beach at Grote Knip...not bad...
Made it back into town around 2 and since I hadn’t eaten lunch, I broke down and ate at McDonalds…yeah, I know…how could I…well it actually took a u-turn and some creative driving and then saying “quarter pounder combo, please”…that’s how. It came with exactly one packet of ketchup and one packet of mayonnaise. I asked for additional ketchup…and got one more. Let’s not go overboard, okay? I figured what the heck, I would try the mayo since apparently that’s how the Dutch roll. It wasn’t too bad. Not as good, in my opinion, as the tomatoey goodness of ketchup, but I could see why it caught on. Oh, they did have…or do have…on the menu a curry chicken sandwich. Looks like their regular chicken sandwiches but I guess with curry flavoring. Seems like spices are a big thing here.
Speaking of spices, all the spices at the grocery store were labeled in Dutch! I think salt is “sel” but I could be wrong. Didn’t see anything resembling black pepper….
Anyway, this is already too long. I am sitting on my porch, drinking a real man’s mini Amstel, enjoying the nice late afternoon breeze remembering: it’s our time, the People’s time.
I had to walk outside from the arrival area to the check-in area so I actually set foot on Jamaican soil (or concrete) and breathed fresh Jamaican air. I usually get a magnet from any country I visit, but I figure the 20 minutes outside + the 2 hours in the airport don’t really count…so no Jamaican magnet. Gotta earn that $hit!
My brief taste of Jamaica walking from the "arrivals" area to the "departures"
I flew Cayman Airways from the Caymans to Montego Bay (all 45 minutes of the flight). Nice seats! Lots of leg room. It was still coach, but I can’t really complain. I flew Air Jamaica down to Curacao. You want to talk about grain of rice in the black bean soup, that was me. Not that there is anything wrong with that…its just I was for sure in the minority on that flight. In a counterpoint to Cayman Airways, there was no leg room, but I had the whole row to myself so I was able to stretch out a little bit. Plus they have Champagne service for their snack and beverage thingy. I didn’t have any champagne but there were a lot of bottles on their cart.
Customs in Curacao was a bit invasive. They actually pawed through my stuff a little bit. Of course the dude picked the suitcase with all my dirty clothes in it to check so I had some silent satisfaction when he was handling my dirty boxer briefs (and that answers that question). He had gloves on but still…
I am staying in the Limestone Holiday Apartments sort of south east of the main city, Willemstad. It has a little kitchenette and comes with a car rental (mine is a Suzuki hatchback).
MTV, pimp my ride! -or- cruisemobile Curacao style:
In my reservations communications (a bunch of emails back and forth) with the owner, Roel, he said there would be taxi 42 waiting for me when I got off the plane. I got off the plane, through customs, out the door and no taxi 42. As a side note, all taxis’ license plates start TX## so taxi 42 would be TX42…had it been there. I had printed out all the travel info for the entire trip (an excellent GTJTTOTD, btw…print out all your travel stuff especially if you did it all yourself…oh and Cammy was totally right! The Cayman’s GTJTTOTD shouldn’t have been walkling…it should have been look right, left and right when crossing the street since they drive on the wrong side of the road, the stuff coming from your right will be what hits you first) so I reread the ones dealing with here and it turns out the original flight was supposed to land at 3PM and it had since changed to 2PM. I was through customs by 2:30 so I leaned back to wait…relatively patiently, for TX42. I gave him until 3:30 and then found a taxi driver who knew where this place was (first lady had no clue), took the cab out here and was met by Roel’s dad (funny old dude…barely speaks English, but was making me laugh).
He led me to a 2 bedroom apartment (I had only booked a 1 bedroom), showed me around and told me Roel was running errands and would meet me shortly. When Roel finally showed up, he said he had me down as coming in the next day (even though my printed stuff said “23rd”) not that it was a problem, but the one bedroom apartment I had booked had someone in it. The one I was in was for some KLM (Dutch airliner I believe) people who might be coming in that night but were probably coming today. So I could use the 2 bedroom for a night and then move over to the 1 bedroom as long as the KLM people didn’t show up. Otherwise, there was this closet (okay not THAT bad, but pretty close) they could put me in for the evening. Hey, I am on vacation…so its all good. I slept in the 2 bedroom, got up and kept everything together today and then while I was out exploring the island, they moved my stuff over. No problems! Oh and it rains here. It’s a drive-by rain…pours for 10 minutes and then is clear, but it has been cloudy off and on all day.
View from my porch..not as good as Sunset House, but not too bad:
I went to the grocery store last night and barely got lost. All the streets are Dutchy and end in “weg” which I guess means street? To add to the confusion, maybe only half of them are marked and then the signs are facing the wrong way. It was an adventure getting out of town today (drove around the island) and I was totally going the wrong way before I finally found some street names, pulled over and poured over the map. Thank goodness for maps!
Anyway, grocery store…they have them here. They even have many of the same things we eat like Oscar Meyer products and Kraft cheeses. They also have a sliced meat section that had everything from salami to “tung” which, I think, is tongue. Sadly, there were no spaghettios so I am not sure I could make it here (kidding! Haven’t had those for a long time). They do have a beer aisle and we are back to Coca Cola Light (in 11oz cans instead of 12oz, but I don’t think that is why it is “light”). They do Amstel beer a lot here. Not Amstel light. That’s for wimps. They go full core Amstel in these 8.5oz bottles. I feel like a giant when I am drinking one. My hand wraps all the way around it. Funny thing is I didn’t see any Amstel Light. They have Amstel Bright, though so maybe that is the same thing? I thought that was a cool name no matter what the contents really were. The strangest thing I saw was canned hotdogs. They had a whole section of normally packaged hot dogs, but on the canned food aisle...canned hot dogs...yah know...for kids! I picked up some eggs, bread and sandwich stuff to try to keep my expenses down a bit while here. I mean why else do a kitchenette. Oh, the store doesn’t have bags for your groceries. You have to either bring your own, or they packed my stuff in a box that was available. The things you learn.
For those who care, the monetary unit here is the Gilder (same thing in the Netherlands, I believe) and it seems like the exchange rate is around 5 Gilders per $3 US…yep, just checked and its 1.66 Gilders per dollar. Most places so far accept Dollars and, once converted, it’s about the same price as what you can get in the US. The trick is they give you the change in gilders, though. Since Bonaire (my next stop) is also one of the Netherland Antilles, I went ahead and withdrew 200 gilders from an ATM…guess I need to check my bank account and make sure they only took out $120…if my calculations aren’t totally hosed. Its eastern time here, or at least I am 3 hours ahead of the west coast. Maybe they don’t do daylights savings. The locals speak Dutch (as do most visitors), a little English (thank goodness) and some patois of Dutch mixed with Spanish and maybe Portuguese? It's pretty lyrical whatever it is.
Today I took the advice of the place I am diving with (tomorrow I start 3 more days of diving) and drove around the island a bit. I got a little misoriented there at the beginning, but quickly got back on track. They drive on the right (correct) side of the road here and its my kind of driving. Out past the city, I didn’t see any speed limits…its more of a “what can your car handle on these crappy roads” kind of thing. Also, if someone is turning left and there is room to do so, pass them on the right even if there isn’t a real lane there. It’s the way driving ought to be…
I went to the National Park Shete Boka on the northwest point of the island. It’s a rocky coast kind of thing with big crashing waves and natural bridges carved by the ocean and things like that. It’s also a desert-like environment with lizards all over the place sunning themselves. Good times.
Dune....Arakis.....Curacao...Desert Planet...the worm is the spice...You shall be known as Mua'dib....okay enough Dune references...lots of cacti and lizards on Curacao:
Surf crashing against the rocky north shore of the island
I continued on to the poorly marked beach called Grote Knip (really…I sort of figured the turnoff was the right one based off the map and where I was…there was no sign…never was a sign…but one of the people at the beach said “Grota here” so I think I was in the right place). It’s on the southern coast of the island and the waters were glassy just 20 minutes after leaving Shete Boka on the north shore. The lesson here is: live on the south side of the island for calm waters. They said it was one of their most popular beaches and the turquoise water made me understand why. I really just stayed on the overlook above it, but looking down into the water, it was super duper clear. I think I am going to enjoy the diving tomorrow assuming there is sea life and/or good looking reefs…we will see.
The beach at Grote Knip...not bad...
Made it back into town around 2 and since I hadn’t eaten lunch, I broke down and ate at McDonalds…yeah, I know…how could I…well it actually took a u-turn and some creative driving and then saying “quarter pounder combo, please”…that’s how. It came with exactly one packet of ketchup and one packet of mayonnaise. I asked for additional ketchup…and got one more. Let’s not go overboard, okay? I figured what the heck, I would try the mayo since apparently that’s how the Dutch roll. It wasn’t too bad. Not as good, in my opinion, as the tomatoey goodness of ketchup, but I could see why it caught on. Oh, they did have…or do have…on the menu a curry chicken sandwich. Looks like their regular chicken sandwiches but I guess with curry flavoring. Seems like spices are a big thing here.
Speaking of spices, all the spices at the grocery store were labeled in Dutch! I think salt is “sel” but I could be wrong. Didn’t see anything resembling black pepper….
Anyway, this is already too long. I am sitting on my porch, drinking a real man’s mini Amstel, enjoying the nice late afternoon breeze remembering: it’s our time, the People’s time.
Posts
woohoo i am the first post it seems. It still sounds like more fun than 5th grade pajama day that i helped with today even though we had a lock down complete with sirens for a bit and no one seems to know why....i like the look of the porch there depending on the bugs you could just sleep out there on the hammock. i hope the diving is good! the foster super mom.
ReplyDelete"barely got lost"? "misoriented"? Fire your editor! I'd point out that freudian slip in your last blog, but I don't think it was a typo (Sophia noticed it too...you know which one I'm talkin' about!). Anyways, keep the pictures coming...those ones you took in the Caymans beat out anything I took there! Hope Curacao is just as awesome! Later, dude.
ReplyDeleteThe beach at grote knip looks awesome!! Can you dive right off the shore there?
ReplyDeleteI just realized your puddle jumper isn't until the end of the curaco trip!! Make sure you take pictures of the plane.