Curacao Day Two

After our first day on Curacao, we decided we were ready to do some exploring. So the next day we wandered the market, which ran along the river. A huge number of boats simply pulled up and unloaded their wares. We had some fresh pineapple, as well as a sort of cashew paste, bought from a street vendor. Both were excellent. We also visited the indoor market on our way to the bus station, but the place was somewhat empty. Not sure if this was because of the day or because everyone had simply moved out. Still, we did get some nice beef patties there.

We took a bus to the plantation where the Curacao liquors are bottled. This place is free, it is very tiny, and you can have pretty much all the free samples you would like. Just don’t plan on spending much time there, because there really isn’t very much to see. And there isn’t any air conditioning, either. We crossed the street, hopped back on the bus and headed back to the hotel.

Our next stop was the Curacao Dolphin Academy. We had received a flyer for a free dolphin encounter if we sat through a time-share presentation, so we did, and I paid for an admission too. Then we walked through the aquarium – again very small – and had our encounter with the dolphins. This is really best described as an “encounter”. It just isn’t much else.

You walk down on a platform into ankle-deep water and the trainers bring the dolphins to you, where you can pet them, kiss them and even have your picture taken holding them (for an additional fee, you can actually take a copy of the picture home). We enjoyed the experience, then tried to get a bus back to the hotel, only to find that a bus didn’t regularly make this trip, as the original driver had told us. Ooops. We managed to find a bus to take us back after wandering the parking lot over towards the Breezes resort.

Once we were finally back in Punda, we decided to find another restaurant for dinner, and came across another one in the old fort – this time across from the Bistro le Clochard that we visited the night before. This one was more of a tiki bar, called simply The Grill King. The food and the service was excellent, it was a beautfiul day and we were sitting on the ocean. Simply awesome. We even saw an eel amongst the rocks below our table!

Finally, we turned in for the night, and then in the morning visited the Hato Caves on our way to the airport. Because these caves are coral, they do not stay cool like many other caves – these are, in fact, downright hot! The humidity is simply incredible and we came out of the cave just dripping with sweat. On the way in, we did see an iguana in a tree below us (the entrance to the cave is actually one of the highest points of the island). Luckily, we caught a ride to the airport with another couple who had toured the cave, otherwise we would have had to walk a bit to the airport or wait on the next bus, that may or may not come when we wanted it to.

In just a few minutes we were at the airport, checked in for our flight, and awaiting the next plane to take us back to Aruba and finish our whirlwind tour of the ABC Islands.