New Year’s seemed like a good time to get away to a beach for swimming, sunning, eating, drinking, exploring and having fun. So we started our quest several years ago to find a tropical place to start each year on a happy, warm note.
It was a simple idea that should have been easy to solve, but it proved harder than we expected. Puerto Rico was too crowded, with mostly Americans and American food. Panama was terrific, but the condo developers are running their sewage pipes out just a short distance from the beaches. Much of Mexico had the same raw-sewage problem, and we soon got tired of the horrific poverty and shotgun-toting soldiers everywhere — even in the gas stations.
Then we found Curaçao (pronounced CURE-a-sow), a small Dutch island at the bottom of the Caribbean, a short distance from Venezuela.
It has all the tropical attractions you’d expect from a Caribbean island — blue water, sugar-white beaches, 85 degree weather, sailing, snorkeling, reef diving and the other water sports. But what sold us on Curaçao was the wonderfully happy, brightly painted city of Willemstad and its incredible mixture of cultures.
Living throughout the city and the island is a welcoming conglomeration of tall, blond Dutch citizens, black African slave descendants, brown Latinos from Central and South America, a smattering of Caribbean Creoles and even a few pirates. Surprisingly, everyone seems to get along well, without the racial tensions we found in the Bahamas and St. Thomas.
Willemstad, with its rows of colonial Dutch buildings brightly painted in reds, blues, yellows and even pink, is lovely and clean, with a surprising selection of very good restaurants and some of the better museums we’ve been to anywhere.
The city is bisected by a long channel leading into an enormous harbor.
The first thing we noticed was the floating pontoon bridge spanning about the length of a football field between the old and new sections of the city. As we walked across it, our landlubber legs got the sense that something was wrong — something was moving. With very little warning from a small horn, which meant nothing to us, the bridge operators fired up a large diesel engine with a propeller attached to it, released their end of the bridge and began swinging the entire bridge on a large hinge over to the far shore, in order to clear the channel for a fishing boat.
If you’re caught on the bridge when it releases, you can either run to the hinged end and jump a short distance, or go along for the 5-minute ride. No one seemed to mind the lack of warning, especially the iguana vendor who now had a captive audience for selling his pets.
The streets are alive with indistinguishable chatter. Heavily accented English predominates, but the sidewalk cafes and shops and squares are filled with jabber in Dutch, Spanish and Papiamentu, a local mixture of Creole, Dutch and Spanish.
Heart of shipping trade
The island’s deep port and isolation at sea gave the place its name, a Portuguese/Spanish version of “heart,” for it was the heart of commerce for shipping and the triangular trade of African slaves, sugar cane and rum.
Curaçao has perhaps the finest museum on slavery I’ve ever seen. Museum Kura Hulanda is a courageous reminder of a dark past, with simple, well-explained exhibits and an overwhelming number of letters, paintings and portraits. There’s even a mock-up of the hold of a slave ship, in which visitors can try on leg irons and handcuffs or try lying down in the 3-foot-tall sleeping shelves. The Dutch, who have owned Curaçao for 350 years, had a fierce history of human abuse and didn’t quit trafficking until 1863, about the same time Lincoln freed America’s slaves.
Roughly 35 miles long and 5 miles wide, just a little larger than Denver but with a quarter of the population, Curaçao has 35 lovely beaches, superb snorkeling and reef diving, surfing and sailing. The south shore, protected from the easterly trade winds of the Caribbean, has the majority of swimming beaches, while the northern and eastern shores have deep water ideal for surfing or wind surfing.
Because of its very large and deep harbor, Curaçao has always been a major port for shipping in the Caribbean. When the vast oil reserves were found in Venezuela’s Maracaibo Basin, Royal Dutch Shell Petroleum built a massive refinery on the island, one that still operates.
Unfortunately, the same deep channel that handles the oil tankers with ease also allows numerous cruise ships in, spilling out thousands of pale, overfed tourists for a few hours every few days. It’s wonderful for the economy but tough if you’re looking for lunch or a trinket. Luckily, the cruise ships pack up and leave before dinner time, leaving Curaçao’s wonderful restaurants accessible for those of us staying in hotels.
Incredible restaurants
One advantage of visiting such a diverse melting pot of cultures, coupled with a long history of prosperity and abundance, is that the small island has an incredible array of very good eateries. You can dine at a remarkably sophisticated level on fresh local fish, filet mignon, hot salsa, pad Thai, beef Wellington, boeuf bourguignon, fondue, pasta bolognese, curry, dim sum, lamb, hummus, sushi and miso soup, chow mein, iguana stew, pizza and tacos. If you get homesick, there’s even a McDonald’s.
Each New Year’s Eve, we book in advance a table at The Wine Cellar, our favorite, that’s owned by Nico Cornelisse, a member of Parliament of Curaçao who is helping write the island’s new constitution in time for its break from the Netherlands Antilles in October. Nico is a wonderful host and will gladly join your table for lively conversations about the local problems. Ask for the corner table, where the Netherlands’ Queen, Beatrice, always sits.
Not only does the island have a long culinary history, it also, like any other seafaring nation, has a long history of imbibing, and that’s when we’ve had some of the funniest moments. I’ve always been intrigued by and curious about the liqueur curaçao, a uniquely orange-tasting liqueur frequently used to give a pleasant touch to margaritas, cosmopolitans, mimosas or any drink with coconut milk. The liqueur, which comes either clear, orange, green or in the popular curaçao blue, comes from the peels of the Lahara orange, a local version of the sweet Valencia orange. Valencias brought over by the Spanish never took to Curaçao very well and developed a bitter taste. They also produced a pungent oil in the peels, which when cooked in the still with spices and alcohol produces the unique-tasting liqueur.
So we drove 5 miles outside of town to Chobolobo Mansion, an old plantation house that is now the world headquarters of the curaçao distillery. While we weren’t looking for something the size of Coors’ brewery, what we found made us break into laughter: a one-room factory centered on a single still the size of a large hot-water heater.
The bottling factory consisted of two women, best friends, sitting side-by-side chatting while they filled the paddle-shaped bottles. The labeling factory was a third woman next to them with a very sharp eye for getting the moistened labels absolutely straight.
After watching a 5-minute video on the distillation process on a tiny television on the wall, we were ushered to the retail sales counter. I balked at carrying breakable bottles of booze back to the United States and opted to buy it at Argonaut Liquors. Sad to say, it is nearly impossible to buy the real stuff in the U.S., where the market has been dominated by knockoffs made elsewhere by Hiram Walker and DeKuyper.
The other drinking story came courtesy of Ronald Veenstra, a most likable Dutch fellow who owns the popular Supreme and Real Souvenir and Liquor Store near the San Marco Hotel. The store is tiny, and the only reason we spotted it was because of the singing coming out the open front door. We walked in and were greeted by Ronald, who has the most welcoming smile and quite an unruly shock of blond Dutch hair. A ragtag group of locals, spurred into song by several glasses of rum, toasted us without missing a beat in their happy recital.
Without asking our tastes, Ronald began mashing mint in a glass, adding rum, sugar, ice and soda water and soon handed us perhaps the best Mojitos we have ever tasted. A scant 10 minutes later, armed with her second Mojito, my companion, Barbara, was swaying arm-in-arm with the drunken chorale, singing away. Ronald, meanwhile, was pulling bottle after bottle of Cuban and Latin American rums down from the shelves, asking me to taste this, taste that, compare it to this one.
It was going to be a long walk back over the floating bridge, this time with several bottles of expensive rums . . . also not available stateside.
Mike McPhee: 303-954-1409 or mmcphee@denverpost.com
Curaçao Insider’s Guide
GET THERE: Curaçao, just 45 miles north of Venezuela, is served by a number of airlines. The most direct flights from Denver require a flight of your choice to Miami. From there, American Airlines has two flights a day: one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Flight time is 2.5 hours; Curaçao is one hour ahead of Eastern Standard Time (three hours ahead of Denver). Other airline options include Air Jamaica, KLM, Avianca and Insel Air.
UPON ARRIVING: English is spoken almost everywhere. The water is safe for Americans to drink, but bottled water is available.
The dollar is accepted almost everywhere, as are major credit cards. The local currency is the Antillean guilder; $1 will buy you roughly 1.75-1.80 guilders. Most ATMs will give you either guilders or dollars. They accept all the major ATM cards, including Cirrus, Maestro, Cashnet, Pin and Plus.
Renting a car is easy and worth it, available from Hertz, Budget, National and Thrifty at the airport or at the larger hotels. Stay away from the local car rental agencies because of maintenance and insurance problems. If you choose not to rent a car, taxis are plentiful and cheap, and most are clean.
STAY: We have always stayed at the Marriott Beach Resort, which is about 5 miles out of town on lovely Piscadera Bay, down the beach from a number of other large hotels. Rates begin around $160 per night and increase (steeply) the closer your room is to the ocean. It has several very good restaurants, with breakfast a big event. Beach towels, chaise lounges and snorkeling gear are free. There is a large pool with a swim- up bar, several outdoor hot tubs and an adequate exercise room.
Other hotels include the Hilton Curaçao next door, the Clarion Hotel, also on Piscadera Bay, and the Renaissance Resort and Casino, located inside the old Rif Fort in downtown Willemstad and operated by Marriott. Another very nice place in the center of town is the Kura Hulanda Hotel, housing with numerous bars, restaurants and the slavery museum.
For the more adventurous or for large families, try renting a house or a villa, which are plentiful. Many are located on the spectacular Spanish Water Bay, a 15-minute drive from Willemstad. Rates are surprisingly cheap, with accommodations for four starting at $120 per night. They are represented by a firm in Aurora, .
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DINE: As mentioned in the story, The Wine Cellar, (5999) 461-2178, can’t be beat for French/Continental cooking, nor can its owner/host, MP Nico Cornelisse, who is there most every night.
Astrolab Observatory Restaurant, located in the Kura Hulanda Hotel (5999) 434-7700, is tres elegante but very pricey. The staff can be snooty, but the food is very good.
Jaipur, also in the Kura Hulanda Hotel, (5999) 434-7700, is a very good curry restaurant with a beautiful setting near the pool and waterfall.
On an encouraging note, we pulled into many out-of-the-way local restaurants around the island for lunch and never had a bad experience. We ate lots of broiled or fried fish, usually served with a unique coleslaw or rice and a local bread. In these small places we did choose to drink bottled water or canned soda. Cash only.
PLAY: This island celebrates New Year’s Eve like no other place we’ve visited. They actually have fireworks competitions among businesses, neighborhoods and restaurants.
The loudest, smokiest and weirdest displays are the hundreds of wooden crates that arrive from China, each containing a single string of 2-inch firecrackers stretching out 100 yards. There are literally hundreds of these strings set off on New Year’s Eve, and the island the next day looks like snowdrifts of red paper.
We walked out of a restaurant one New Year’s Eve around 10 p.m. to see these for the first time. Teenagers were still prying open the crates, then stringing the firecrackers together into one string at least six blocks long. The noise, which went on for 10 minutes, is deafening and the smoke can suffocate you. But they love it.
Many islanders gather in Willemstad’s main square, Brionplein, near the floating bridge, for music, dancing and fireworks. Toward midnight, someone will light a small charcoal pit on the ground. Soon, a rhythmic dance line forms, snaking its way over the charcoal pit. The idea is to straddle the pit as you dance, so that the heat and smoke will give you a (re)productive year. Mostly it’s an excuse to dance and laugh, particularly at the women in long skirts that fill with smoke.
The island is very much worth exploring, with many remote beaches and some terrific hikes up 1,000-foot Mount Christoffel, which is steep but well worth the view. Be careful of the cactus.
There are several national parks on the north end, including Shete Boka, with beautiful limestone cliffs surrounding seven inlets, or bokas. Sea turtles, including loggerheads, hawksbills and green turtles, come ashore here to lay and hatch eggs from April through November.
Water sports are too numerous to mention because you can find anything you want, either on the surface, near the surface, deep below, or skimming across the surface by wind or motor.
We have developed an annual New Year’s tradition of renting a small sailboat on Spanish Waters and sailing for the day for about $50. We visit waterfront houses, large schooners, swimming beaches and anything else we see, all while enjoying wine and sandwiches.
For sailboat chartering, with or without crew, contact Theo Freriks at Pro-Sail Curaçao, located on Spanish Water Bay, (5999) 565-6070 or (5999) 515-6070. They also have a fleet of small powerboats, with or without crew.
It’s a terrific way to begin the year.
Mike McPhee
