Sunny Amesterdam

Helen: ok, so who spotted the (wish I could say deliberate) mistake in the last post? I said 'curacao's hardly inhabited' when of course, I meant 'hardly UNinhabited' - we went to Willemstad yesterday and it's heaving. The guidebook said it's just like being in a tropical Amsterdam - they're not wrong. Bonaire had 13,000 people - Curacao, which isn't that much bigger, has a population of 150,000. It also had one of the world's largest oil refineries until Shell closed it in the mid 80s, and it still has one of the busiest deep water ports in the world, so, all in all, it's hardly a sleepy tropical paradise. There is (or at least was quite recently) a fair amount of money here, and the infrastructure to boot. The landscape is still scrubby and full of cactuses (cacti?) (found out why it's not lush and green like the rest of the east caribbean - no mountains = no rain) but it's full of houses. Bonaire just had a couple of settlements really, with big open spaces. This island is only 30 miles away but totally different. Will put up some photos soon (C and I got photographed yesterday when we were in town cos a journalist wanted a picture of a couple kissing for today's Valentine's newspaper...)

All the buildings here are really brightly coloured - purple, blue, yellow, green, red - apparently it's because a governor in the 1800s hurt his eyes looking at all the whitewash in the harsh sun, so it's a law that all buildings have to be painted. Makes the place look lovely and friendly. Willemstad is a World Heritage Site - the gabled buildings on the waterfront look just like Amsterdam.

C was pretty well behaved yesterday - Amelia is just like me and loves sightseeing and museums (James, the skipper and her husband, is just like C and hates it!) - we went to see the oldest continually used synagogue in the western hemisphere yesterday (has a sandy floor to remind jews of the exodus through the desert) and we went to a (v good) slavery museum. And he didn't moan much. He has asked to be excused from bikini shopping today though!! (Sobering thought from the slavery museum: slaves on slave ships had less room than a man in a coffin. Also interesting is the fact that as well as the African slave trade, there was apparently a v healthy trade in European slaves too...Didn't know that...)

Tomorrow we're off to an ostrich farm (for lunch too :) ) and then to see a plantation house, and then possibly the Curacao distillery - not sure we'll buy a souvenir from there though as Curacao liqueur looks revolting!!

Auf wiedersehn (practising my German as we've made friends with an Austrian couple on another cat...)
Hxx