Isla Roatan, Honduras

Pirates, Parrots and Monkeys:
By Chris Millikan
For seven glorious days, Carnival’s Valor drops my hubby and me at a series of hot-hot-hot Caribbean ports for sunny adventures. Isla Roatan, a tropical island 30 miles off the northern Honduran mainland is no different. First glimpsed from our balcony, this emerald isle sparkles in the morning sun, and buzzes with construction of its new cruise ship terminal.

Flamboyantly costumed and masked Garifuna performers welcome us ashore, dancing wildly and chanting to frenetic drum music from their African heritage. Like us, everyone stops for photos!
With a couple of adventurous friends in tow, we dodge waiting tour buses and craft market frenzy, eager to explore beyond this bustling pier. Quickly striking a deal with David, a 16-year-old guide, we taxi northward from Coxen Hole, the island’s most populated town.

Driver Luis speaks only Spanish; David speaks excellent English, guiding visitors like us by day and attending school at night. When asked about the remarkable traditional dancers at the pier, David explains, “Long ago local natives and shipwrecked Africans intermarried, creating a new culture. Nowadays, about 200,000 Garifuna live in the Caribbean, mainly in Honduras, Belize and Guatemala.”
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Curacao 5

Hato Caves

Fun for the Whole Family
If you’d like to venture into a cavern, take a tour of Hoto Caves. They are open daily except Monday. Guided tours will take the family through the stalactite and stalagmite-filled rooms, several of which include pools and waterfalls.

A definite winner with the kids, the Sea Aquarium is one of the Caribbean’s finest marine exhibits. There are local fish, coral and sponges but it is the outdoor tanks with sharks, sea turtles and stingrays that really captivate. Want to swim with the fishes? At the Curacao Dolphin Academy, you can swim, snorkel and even dive with these special creatures.

Pull your head up out of that sugary white sand and take the family to the Curacao Ostrich Farm with a population of over 600 birds, one of the biggest farms outside of Africa. Kids (of all ages) are fascinated to view how ostriches live and breed.

As our Curacao travels came to an end, I’m happy to report that at Angelica’s Kitchen I did learn to blanch and, in fact, all of my cooking buddies did a great job with their assigned dishes. Cooking together, messing up, laughing a lot, making new friends, and ultimately turning out a darn good meal is an experience I’d highly recommend. Leaving Angelica’s we felt sated, convivial, and very Bon-Bini-ed - a memorable Curacao experience!

Curacao 4

During colonial times, a good part of the merchant class that moved to Curacao was comprised of Sephardic Jews looking for religious freedom. Our tour included a visit to The Jewish Cultural Museum which housed a fascinating display of objects illustrating the customs and traditions of these early settlers and the history of a community going back hundreds of years. The museum is a part of the oldest synagogue in continuous use in the Western Hemisphere - Mikve Israel Emanuel - a wondrous building to behold.

Our stay at the Kura Hulanda Hotel was special. Our rooms were furnished with hand-carved mahogany and teak furniture and was surrounded by attractive bluestone walkways, boutiques, restaurants and sculpture gardens, all done in 18 th and 19 th century Dutch colonial style.

There are two spectacular pools, including a grotto surrounded by natural rock formations and fed by a calming waterfall. On its site is the Kura Hulanda Museum, a beautifully-curated, anthropological gem that focuses on the predominant cultures of Curacao, exhibiting the trans-Atlantic slave trade in its totality. There is a vast collection of artifacts from Continental Africa, the largest of its kind in the Caribbean. We found one of the more remarkable pieces in the museum’s garden - a standing woman sculpture, one side of her face beautiful and beguiling, and the other side displaying the continent of Africa.
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Curacao 3

Orange is the new….well, Orange
At least on this day. The people of Curacao wear many bright colors but on April 30 of each year, it’s orange or nothing. The bright hue is the national color of The Netherlands and this date marks the Queen’s birthday, so Celebration Time is On! The atmosphere was festive as we danced in the street to the rhythms of calypso, meringue, tango, reggae and salsa. Although I found myself with not a stitch of orange clothing, I joined the thousands of revelers and made do with a bright, exotic orange flower stuck behind my ear. It worked.
Taking the Plunge
After the swinging, hectic celebration of Queen’s Day, I awoke to the sound of the ocean softly beckoning outside my window. It was a call I had to answer, opting for a day of lazing on sparkling white sand of the iconic Avila Hotel and trying out my new snorkel gear. The water was warm as a bath and of a blue so luminous it defied description, making the view below a colorful romp with the myriad fishes that swim near the shore. Snorkeling is right up my particular alley – not scary, yet allowing me to feel I’m doing something really adventurous. However, for those of you who want to delve deeper, you should know that Curacao is a scuba diving paradise, among the best in the world with 165 dive locations, and a chance to view endangered coral reefs and ancient ship wrecks. That evening, we dined at Belle Terrace, Avila’s seaside restaurant, serenaded by a trio playing traditional island songs and sitting under a huge silver globe. Can that really be the moon? Yes, it was.
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Curacao 2

Bon Bini!
What makes Curacao unique and special among the Caribbean islands? Naturally there’s the transparent turquoise sea, the soft white sand, the ubiquitous palm trees swaying in the breeze. So, the difference? In a word: Authenticity. And, accomplishing the seeming impossible, Curacao still feels undiscovered, almost like an exclusive hideaway that only you were smart enough to find. It has a heritage both European and African. Spanish, Dutch, British, African and Jewish settlers have each added their own distinct flavor and today more than 50 nationalities are represented here. On my visit I heard a profusion of languages and islanders frequently greeted us with a lusty Bon Bin! which means welcome in Papiamentu, the local language.

We took a tour of Willemstad, Curacao’s capital city and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Row upon row of candy-colored houses – pink, green, yellow, turquoise - gave the town a pretty, fairytale look. The homes featured pitched gables, shady verandas, jalousie windows and many were covered with cascading bougainvillea, a flowering plant that’s considered good luck. In fact, on New Year’s Eve, people use the flowers to make a fragrant water to wash down their houses, thus insuring a fortuitous new year.
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CURACAO

Where Northern Europe meets the Southern Caribbean
by Barbara Barton Sloane

“Blanch your plantains!” our instructor commands in a no-foolin’-around voice. Blanch? “What does blanch mean?” I furtively whisper to Julia, my partner in this off-the-wall adventure. You see, we were cooking for our supper in Angelica’s Kitchen where our group of intrepid travelers has come for a lesson in traditional cuisine. Having already had a rather lengthy lesson in the art of knife-handling, and inhaling the ambrosial aromas wafting forth from boiling cauldrons, we looked forward to an evening that would end in a memory-making meal or – at the very least- an edible one.

A group of us, journalists all, are visiting Curacao, an island rich in history. Settled by natives of South America, in 1499 the Spanish arrived and, in 1634, the Dutch defeated them to stake their claim to the island. It is the largest and most populous of the three ABC islands of the Lesser Antilles: Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao. It is under 3 hours flight time from Miami and a mere 35 miles north of Venezuela.

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Nicaragua

After 2 days of travelling by bus, I arrived in another beach town called San Juan del Sur with 2 Aussie girls in tow, whose Spanish is about as good as my Russian, so I became their translator/guide for the journey. We cleared customs and whizzed on to San Juan in a taxi and arrived to a rousing reception at a hostel run by a lovely Aussie couple which had a great view of San Juan as we were up in the mountains. ( I have never before been high fived on arrival at any hostel). By this time everyone knew my name as I had booked ahead, so the word was out, Michael Jackson was arriving!!! The hostel also has a pet spider monkey called Buzz, whose hobbies include attacking, biting, swinging, scratching its bum and sleeping. But what a cool monkey, You could watch it for hours, it was more entertaining than Michael Mcintyre, which isnt saying much I know... I spent a good few days here relaxing, swimming, tanning and eating good tucker. It was kind of like being on holiday with your family (if you actually like your family), everyone ate together, drank together and had some good banter.

I was very sorry to leave there but am now in Granada, which is a lovely town. Not sure where my next stop is but probably north of Nicaragua, I have been told there is a place where you can throw yourself off a volcano on some sort of board... sounds very cultural!

Sorry to have droned on but I could have said a hell of a lot more, this was really just to let people know where I am, I will post photos on facebook later on.

And just to let you know, Daan is back in Holland and recovering well! Hooray!

Daan

Costa Rica - Puerto Viejo

By this time my dutch friends had abandoned me and I travelled to Puerto Viejo. A stunning little beach town, where you can cycle around to your hearts content. This is where I experienced my first earthquake!! Luckily the quake was miles away but we felt some tremors in the hostel and we were put on tsunami alert for an hour or so, it was very exciting indeed!

Even though I I met up with my Hawaiian friend Nick who I met in Bocas and a Spanish girl, Marta, who is living in Puerto Viejo teaching kids. Highlights of Puerto Viejo included kayaking down a river, where I saw lots of turtles and howler monkeys, more snorkelling in the ocean, visiting an animal refuge, frisbee on the beach, and a big night out which involved some sort of tequila competition, I am pretty sure I lost.... I should also point out that the hostel I stayed in I got loads of free stuff from the owners, coffees, cakes, snacks, etc, I shold also point out that they are very camp, thank God I didnt have to give them anything in return!!!!

See you soon amigos

Daan

Colombia to Nicaragua 3

Bocas del Torro - what a strange place!!! Lots of little islands with no beaches, and you have to take water taxis to get around.

After a few days of Daan moping around we took him to the hospital, well I call it a hospital, I have seen cleaner floors in an outside toilet in Thailand. Taking of toilets, they had one in reception, yes, in reception!!!!!! An actual toilet by the desk, obviously it wasnt attached to anything.... and it had a broom sticking out the top of it. Anyway Daan got his results back after 5 hours of messing about and we all went back to the hostel to celebrate, I mean look after him. My only foray to an island was to do some snorkelling but there were so many jellyfish that we had to abandon the trip and go for a beer, which was just as well because we found a midget selling lobsters and had a lovely dinner!
See you soon amigos
Daan