Hello, it's actually Friday June 8, but the last 2 days were so fun and busy that we didn't have the time to blog during the day or the energy to blog at night. So the next 2 days are relaxing fun days at sea as we sail back towards Florida, so we'll be updating Curacao and Aruba today and tomorrow.
So, we arrived in Curacao at 2pm and I had done research to know exactly what I wanted to see but we needed transportation to the different parts of the island. After haggling with a few taxi drivers we found a nice guy who told us he could take us where we needed to go and also show us some things that only the locals know about. We made price arrangements and jumped in for the hour ride to Westpunt the western most part of Curacao. First stop of the day was Boka Shete National Park and a view of Boka Pistola and the amazing waves crashing against the volcanic cliffs. After seeing what we wanted to see our guide brought us to one of those local knowledge spots in the park and guided us into a cave where the water rushed all the way to our feet before it was sucked back out to see and thrashed against the cliffs. The next stop was Knip Bay but before we got there he showed us another local spot called Westpunt Beach Overlook and we were able to get a few beautiful pictures. Finally we arrived at Knip Bay, which is the top rated beach on Curacao. As we grabbed our towel and bags to head to the beach our guide pulled me to the side and showed me a walkway that lead to an amazing overlook off a cliff. I thought it was great, then he told me to jump. I had heard about cliff jumping but didn't know exactly where it was so after he told me where to jump and how far out, I threw caution to the wind and launched myself off the 30 foot cliff. WOW, what an experience... and after jumping again several people on the beach gathered around and started jumping too. We spent another hour at Knip Bay Beach and the cliffs before heading back towards the cruise port. But before we got back to the port our guide pulled over and showed us some salt flats near Williwood. After looking out over the salt flats we noticed hundreds of pink birds...FLAMINGOS!!! So, after caves, cliffs, cliff jumping, and flamingos we were finally back at the cruise ship.
Flamingos in the salt flats
We went back to our cabin, showered, changed, ate, then headed back into Curacao to experience the nightlife (we were docked until 11pm). We explored a local fort named Rif Fort, walked across the floating bridge, and then visited the amazing waterfront district that is totally illuminated by neon spotlights. While at the waterfront district we ran into a couple that we had seen the 3 previous days and just stood on the floating bridge and talked, then we walked a little further and all of a sudden Shandle heard someone calling her name, we turned around and there was Eugene from South Africa waving us over to a table he was sitting at. Eugene works on the ship with the art team and remembered us from the Day 1 art auction. After visiting with us he told me he had something lined up especially for us (My no art buying rule this trip may be in trouble)... anyways after visiting with Eugene we started to walk back towards the ship when we came across a few wonderful photo opportunities with the Carnival Freedom. We finally made it back onto the ship and decided to attend the sail away party on the top deck when I noticed the Curacao Little League championship being played. I came to find out that Curacao's Little League team had won the Little League World Series 9 times and has produced major leaguers such as Andruw Jones and Dan Uggla. I snapped a few zoomed in pictures of the game and a few pictures of Curacao as we sailed away towards our next stop in Aruba. Curacao was a question mark port for us but it turned out to be one of the most unexpectedly exciting stops we've experienced while cruising. Another great day in the books it's time to get some sleep in preparation for Aruba!
Curacao Little League Game
Looks like you guys are having so much fun! :) Really good to see! ;)
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