One month ago, Stefan and I had the most amazing vacation. We chose to go to Curacao, and island off the coast of Venezuela and part of the Netherland Antillies.
It. Was. Gorgeous.
They have a beautiful little downtown called Wilemstad that looks like a mini tropical version of Copenhagen, and a floating bridge across the canal that connects one side of the town, Punda, to the other side, Otrobanda. Most of the tourists were Dutch, and the radio stations were of course Dutch too, so it was interesting to hear Dutch spoken pretty much everywhere, in addition to a native language that mixes something of a portugese variety with Dutch. All I know is I had no clue what anyone was saying.
We planned a mix of relaxing and adventure, and boy did we have both! We relaxed at our gorgeous resort on white sands in front of blue waters, drank tropical drinks and watched lizards and iguanas skitter by. (One even tried to steal my lunch) We snorkeled and saw hundreds of fish, and we even got to swim with two dolphins where we rode on their dorsal fins (and boy they can MOVE). We went on a rather terrifying horse back riding tour.. my horse Pearl was determined to be in front the entire time, even in front of the tour guide, and was itching to go fast at any opportunity. On more than one occasion I thought my horse was going to prance me right into the road with cars going at 50mph, and then when a dog came nipping at the horses heels I thought for sure it was all over, I was going to get thrown right off the back of her…but, I survived!
We also took a two hour boat ride out to a little island off of Curacao, where the water was even more blue and the sand more white, if that were even possible. What I didn’t know is how sea sick I would get…but luckily that didn’t ruin the whole day and this is where we had the best meal of our whole trip, grilled by the staff of the boat. We even saw sea turtles!
It was over too soon, and I am already counting the days until I can go somewhere tropical and warm again! There’s a lot of pictures, some even from our underwater point and shoot. Hopefully you may be headed somewhere tropical soon yourself, and if not, feel free to live vicariously through these photos!
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