As we expected Curacao was a little more vibrant than Bonaire. We docked in the capital city of Willemsted. Even though it was larger and busier it still had a very nice and laid back feel to it.
It was just a short walk from the ship to downtown and thankfully like Bonaire there was no gauntlet of vendors and hawkers to navigate. The downtown area is divided into two sections by St Anna Bay. To get from one side to the other you had two options, a short and free ferry ride or walking across the Queen Anna Pedestrian Bridge. If you ever find yourself on Jeopardy and the answer is “The Queen Anna Bridge” quickly ring in and say “What is the longest pedestrian pontoon bridge in the world?” On the way back to the ship we had to take the ferry. The bridge was open to allow a cargo ship out to sea.
https://www.curacao.com/en/
The downtown was clean with both commercial buildings and houses painted in bright colors. There was a nice “floating market” along the bank of the bay selling nice looking fruits, vegetables and locally produced goods. We even stimulated the economy a small bit. Beth bought a nice beach cover up with a tag inside proclaiming “Made in India”. I guess we actually stimulated two economies!
After looking around a bit it was off to the beach. We took a city bus for $2 per person each way to Mambo Beach. It was a fairly busy beach with a nice swimming area. We know there were nicer beaches but this one was easy and inexpensive to reach. Sun, sand, water it met all the requirements!
A special hello to a great couple from the UK that we met last year in Alaska (Derek and Flora). It was great to hear from you. So nice to have friends like Anne and Beth from Australia and Derek and Flora from the UK reading this silly thing!
The pictures are posting pretty good now but the captions don’t always show. I’ll work on those when we get back to Florida. Most pictures are pretty self explanatory......it’s a beach somewhere in the Caribbean.
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| Floating Market |
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| Downtown street-Willemsted |
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| Mambo Beach |
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| St. Anna Bay & Downtown |
