Curaçao
>> Willemstad
Willemstad, May 2007
Lagoon Beach on Curaçao
Spent a great five days on the island of Curaçao, a welcome relief after Cartagena. It was so nice to see smiling faces, from the moment that we landed. The beer was great at Wilhelmina's cafe, and the people were very friendly. Paul Drabbe is a young 20-something and a hard worker. He owns Wilhelmina's with a friend of the same age.
It was at Wilhelmina's that we met a neat English sailor, who strongly supported our idea of next visiting Grenada, saying it was one of his favorite places.
We stayed in Otrabanda and walked across the bridge to Punda for window-shopping, internet and so on. They have this neat pedestrian bridge, Queen Emma I think, that is suspended on pontoons across the port entrance. Emma has engines on one end and the other end is hinged to the dock. To close the bridge, the bridge tender starts the engines and applies full power. The end of the bridge where he and the engines are is forced to the seawall slowly but surely, effectively closing the bridge for pedestrians and opening the access by water to the port.
