Curacao And The Mosquito Apocalypse

A week ago my flight from Aruba to Suriname was cancelled for no apparent reason, so in a moment of spontaneity I decided to pop over to Curacao for a bit more island fun before heading back to the mainland.

It’s an odd island which doesn’t make a lot of sense really; in part because I’ve had a few issues and also because, well, it’s just a bit weird.

You need to take a look at the history to understand why it’s such a strange place. It was first settled by the Arawak Amerindians, before Dutch Jews arrived later in the 17th century.

It was then a huge slave trading port, before being briefly conquered by the British, handed back to the Dutch, who later abolished slavery in 1863. At some point in the 1920s the Venezuelans raided the island, before the Dutch decided to instate a military presence.

The island was, and still is to an extent, dominated by a giant oil refinery. It also had some extensive salt mines where weird little sea anemones now creep around.

And in more recent times, big hotels have been staking their claim in the land and attempting to lure American tourists to their slices of Caribbean shoreline.

Despite the brutal past being long ago, you do get a feeling that some old wounds still run deep and that there remains a level of segregation on the island. The people are generally very friendly, but it says a lot that they warm to you even more when you tell them you aren’t Dutch…

The sudden interchanging of languages from moment to moment is also confusing, though an enjoyable challenge to keep up with. Like Aruba, you predominantly hear Dutch, English, Papiamento and Spanish spoken, with most people able to speak at least 2, if not 3 or 4 of them.

The part of town I stayed in was very blue collar, in old colonial houses in various states of disrepair, and there were very few other white people to be seem.

Walk 10 minutes down the street though and suddenly you find a high-end cruise ship development with casinos, designer shops and $10 mojitos compared to the fantastic cheap rum in my local bar.

Cross the crazy wobbly floating bridge and you find a more mixed town centre. Beyond that a rich Dutch area with modern developments and great restaurants. Beyond that, the huge resorts of Mariot hotels etc. In the space of 30 minutes, you really feel like you’ve crossed several different dimensions.

And then there’s the island itself. It’s hot, dry, barren and covered in cacti. There are some great little beaches though and some fantastic snorkeling to be done.

Like Aruba, however, the barren land results in very expensive products like fresh fruit and vegetables. Very expensive. It’s not hard to see why some say the Spanish found the Antilles first, but didn’t want them, calling them the ‘useless islands’.

So on an island which is slowly converting itself from oil refinery to hotel paradise, when you book yourself into one of the cheapest places possible to save money, you learn a few lessons:

Lesson 1

If you’re 193cm tall, a single bed in a hostel with no mesh on the old shutters is going to be a serious problem during the mosquito apocalypse. My bite collection is now around the 50 mark.

Lesson 2

If you’re that tall, you can’t sleep in the foetal position all night to avoid pressing any part of your body against the mosquito net.

Lesson 3

If you take 4 clothes hangers and wedge them between the corners of the bed and mattress you can push the net out to get more space. Then if you use tons of cellotape, you can connect the sides of the mosquito net to the walls, thus creating even more space. No more foetal position.

Lesson 4

Don’t book a room in the Caribbean with a ceiling fan and no air conditioning. It just pushes hot air around the room and makes your cunning mosquito net engineering fall down in the night. Now up to 60 mosquito bites.

So all in all, I had a pretty sleepless week. That and a small problem of going totally deaf in my left ear for 3 days.

I never realized how disorientating and generally mood-killing it is being unable to hear. So after days of constantly asking people to repeat themselves (great for Spanish practice incidentally), I finally sought help.

Lesson 5

Don’t go to a hospital where they charge you $150 just to look at you. Go to a local doctor near the end of the day, beg to be seen as an emergency patient and then pay just $23 (my lucky number!) for a cure which was a minor miracle. I’ve also now realised that I’d been partially deaf for years. Amazing.

So with my battle with hearing loss and ninja assassin mosquitoes, it’s been a funny old week. Having said that, just like Aruba, it’s the people I met who made for a far better time than my moany rant might otherwise suggest.

For a backpacker’s hostel I was pleasantly surprised to find a group of peaceful, gentle, considerate and warm people. A lovely Canadian couple hired a tiny hairdresser’s car which 5 of us piled into for a beach tour. You really need a car on this island if you want to escape the twilight zone of the center.

And then there was some great food to be found. I ate Iguana stew for the first time (a very local dish), and tried most of the menu in a Surinamese bar, where they let me watch the rugby games.

I even found a local version of my favourite Spanish dish – pincho de pollo. And on the last night, the second miracle of the week occurred as I found fish and chips with a pint of Stella. Perfect.

The day I left, we talked about whether we’d go back one day. Nobody was convinced, but if I fancied some good snorkeling and had the money to stay in a luxury hotel and rent a car, I might do. But the reality is that with so many other places to explore, I don’t think I’ll be seeing Curacao again. At least not until the island’s mosquito count is a bit lower.

Onward to Suriname

I’m writing this from Suriname, where I’ve now been for a little over 24 hours and I can happily say it’s even weirder than Curacao. So weird in fact, that I feel like I’m in a film. I just have no idea what genre it is, what the plot is or how it ends.

I’ll let you know in a few days.