Arrival in Curacao was on time, 7am. The weather was good, a promised 29 degrees and partly cloudy. A couple of those clouds gave us some brief showers while I had breakfast, but dried up in a few minutes. As I walked across the deck back to my cabin it was already dry and stayed that way during the day.
I had booked a tour to the ostrich farm, the largest outside South Africa with 600 birds. We did not leave till 12.30 so I took it easy 'at home' and had an early lunch. Most of the passengers were out on various tours or just walking into town and checking out the shops and coffee bars, so it was nice and quiet in the dining room.
We met our tour guide on the pier, when we were all there she guidd us to the bus. The driver was again a lady driver, she did the job well too. There were many narrow roads and tight corners, a couple of times she had to make a 3-point turn around corners. The drive to the farm went first over the 'New Bridge" the highest in the Caribbean to allow ships in to the inside port. Sometimes the cruise ships needed to go in there to turn if they were tied up in the channel. The Old Bridge is a pontoon bridge and swings away when ships need to go in or out.
On the way we saw many of the typical caribbean houses, all painted in various colours trimmed with white. There are 4 official languages in Curacao and Aruba too, Dutch, the main one, then English, Spanish and also Papiamento a mix of Spanish, Portugese, Dutch, French, English and Arawak' The first inhabitants of the islands were Arawak indians from South America. The Spanish arrived in 1499 and the Dutch in 1634.
At the Ostrich Farm we boarded a safari jeep (electrically driven) for a tour of the pens to see the birds. The males are black and white and the females grey and white. The young chicks are grey all over. A female can lay as many as 80 eggs in a season. The males look after the eggs and hatch them and is also looking after the babies. The farm has an ncubator so they remove the eggs from Daddy and after a couple of weeks he goes looking for female company again.
Ostriches are very good at kicking, forward only. They do not bite much as their beak is rounded in front. I could feed them with my hand open flat with some pellets on, they did not bite or pinch my fingers till the pellets were gone, then I got pinched! There were a couple of miniature horses in a pen near the house. We saw a few iguanas around the yard as well as geese and ducks. Ostrich eggs are very strong, we were standing on one to show how strong they are. I have a photo to prove it.
After looking through the shop we boarded the bus for a short trip to Chichi's a gallery nearby with crafts and figures painted by many of the local ladies. A couple of the smaller ones are now on board the Sea Princess.
As soon as we were all onboard, we set off for the Panama Canal. We will have another day at sea before arriving there.
Standing on the egg
Aloe Vera farm
Iguana
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