Curacao

We took a mid-winter break and headed to the Caribbean to enjoy some fun in the sun.  I'm going to keep the text light so I can fill in more pictures.  After a day of flying from Milwaukee to Chicago to Miami to Curacao we joined Jo's sister, Kathy, along with her son, Drew, and boyfriend (or is it significant other), John, for a week of island breezes and warm temperatures. The weather was warm all week although we had some clouds and a brief rain (usually only for 15 minutes) each day. We spent our days lazing on the beach, doing a little snorkeling, reading on our deck, or exploring the island.

We did enjoy a day exhausting ourselves by hiking to the top of Mt. Christoffel (mountain is fairly relative on a Caribbean island, it was only 1,200 feet) which was a nice hike until you hit the last 300 feet which was mostly straight uphill and required a bit of climbing skills.  We also did several other of the hikes in the Christoffel National Park.  Which meant by the end of the day we had 5 tired people reading to kick back and relax.  This led to us heading home to enjoy rum punches on the deck while playing increasingly rowdy games of Yahtzee.  It also eventually led several of us to regret the power of a well made rum punch (or I should say punches) on the following day.  But the views from the top were spectacular along with getting to spot two of the white tailed deer that live in the park.  We also saw many local birds and a few large iguanas.

Naturally, no tour of Curacao would be complete without checking out the capital, Willemstad.  Although we didn't help the local economy with many purchases, just a small Christmas ornament for us and few T-shirts for Kathy and team, we did get to see many of the local attractions including a wonderful lunch at the Old Market where I sampled the local speciality of stewed goat.  It was delicious and I would highly recommend it for anyone traveling to Curacao.  We also made a few dinners at our villa where we would eat on the deck along with our resident geckos who we assumed were enjoying the various bugs for their evening meals.  Of course the bugs where enjoying us for their evening meals.  Oh, the circle of life.

The end of the week came way too quickly and too soon it was time to get back on the plane to return to reality and jobs (for some anyway).  But we had a incredibly relaxing trip and came back well rested which really was the goal.  It was amazing to land back in Milwaukee where the temperature was 66 degrees.  Made for a much easier transition back from the islands.