Started the day with the breakfast buffet at 7 a.m., and the divers headed out at 8. I decided to do a walking tour of Willemstad. I had booked it the day before through an app and was told to meet in the Renaissance area in front of the statue of Dr. Efrain Jonckheer. The night before, I’d asked the bellman for directions and he told me to just take the $2 bus downtown. But when I checked again with the morning bellman, he said the bus wouldn’t take me all the way there—it only went to Punda—and that I’d need a taxi to reach Otrobanda. Confused by the conflicting advice, I went to the front desk. They cleared it up: downtown Willemstad has two sides, Punda and Otrobanda. The buses stop in Punda because they don’t cross the bridge, but you can easily walk across the bridge to the other side. So I took the bus.
When I got on, the bus was mostly locals. A nice young woman smiled at me and, when I struggled with the window, she helped me pull it open. I asked her, “I know this bus goes downtown to the center of Punda—can you let me know when I should get off?” She said it just stops there and that it was easy. Then another lovely lady chimed in and said it was an easy walk downtown, that she was going that way anyway, and she would walk me to the bridge.
When we got off the bus, she explained that we were walking through the Punda side, and we slowly made our way through a big farmers market full of fruit vendors. She seemed to know everyone. She bought a quarter of a watermelon, and another man came over to talk to her. She told me we needed to wait, though I wasn’t sure why at first. She and the man were watching the canal beside the vendor stalls. After about five minutes, a boat pulled up next to them and tossed over a package. The man handed it to her, she thanked him, and then we started walking again.
She asked if I’d ever had a certain type of bread—I didn’t quite catch the name, so I said no. Then she asked if I’d ever had yucca. I said yes, and she opened the package. Inside were pieces of bread that looked a bit like gyros. She explained that it’s a Venezuelan bread made from a plant similar to yucca, so she can only get it from there. This was how she got it, via the boat—pretty interesting to see. She walked me past the post office and then to her workplace, a shop called “The Best of Curaçao,” where she works as a clerk. She dropped off her bag there—with all the bread and the watermelon still in it—and then walked me to the end of the street, pointed me toward the floating bridge, gave me a hug, and wished me a good day.
As I walked across the floating bridge, I had a beautiful view of the ocean and the upper Queen Juliana Bridge that we drove across when we first arrived.
Several tours were meeting in the same area, so I had to figure out which one was mine. I overheard one of the guides telling a couple that you can’t drive motor vehicles over the floating bridge—then she suddenly stopped, because just at that moment two black SUVs were crossing it. She laughed and said, “Except the Prime Minister—his vehicles are the only ones allowed over the bridge,” and sure enough, that’s what we were seeing. The Prime Minister was driving into work.
I finally found my tour guide—a lovely woman whose name I, unfortunately, can’t remember—but she was incredibly energetic and shared a wealth of history as she pointed out the abundance of murals throughout the Otrobanda area. I didn’t read all the fine print when I booked the tour, but it turned out to be a two-hour walking tour of Otrobanda, one of the four main neighborhoods of Willemstad. Its name comes from the Papiamentu phrase otro banda, meaning “the opposite side.” The area was originally founded on the opposite side of Sint Anna Bay from Punda, which means “the point” in Dutch and was once a walled city. Otrobanda is known for its colorful colonial architecture and street art which we got to see!
The video below if shows a painting done under the over pass bridge of a highway. It was absolutely gorgeous!
We stopped at a house where the tour guide knocked on the door and a lady came out with homemade ice cream that we could buy for two dollars. She did not supply spoons so we have to basically suck the ice cream out. I had a mango one which was very refreshing in the heat!
Instead of taking the full large bus to get back, I took one of the smaller little minivans. It was just important to try and identify which was the right one but many of them had stopped at Sunscape and it was pretty easy to hop in one of those and get back to the resort.
For dinner, the entire dive group ate at HIMITSU, the open-air Japanese restaurant. We had a beautiful view of the sunset while sipping cocktails. Jim ordered a drink with blue curaçao, a sweet citrus liqueur made from the dried peels of the laraha orange. It’s known for its brilliant blue color (from added dye) and tastes like sweet, candied oranges with a hint of bitter orange zest, adding both color and flavor to mixed drinks.
The chef put on a show by doing knife tricks which was fun. In addition to fried rice and vegetables he cooked pork, chicken, beef and shrimp. The food was good and fresh! I personally thought it was great!
After a scrumptious meal we took a walk along the beach. Words can't describe how beautiful and calming it is.