Curaçao Bon Dia

Curaçao boat and Extreme Sports SCUBA group at Curaçao

Bon dia, pasa un bon dia

Good Morning, have a good day.   This is the way we started our days in Curaçao…..the Papiamento greeting for the ABC islands.

Papiamento???  Papiamento is a combination of 5 languages: Spanish, Portuguese, African, Dutch and Arawak Indian and has evolved much over the years into its own language, spoken on Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao and Saint Eustatius.  Our friends on Curaçao and the other islands speak, read, and write English, Spanish, Dutch, Paliamento, and many also speak French and German.  I have problems with English.

Curaçao

This is going to be a mini primer on not quite conversational speaking for our next trip to Curaçao, and maybe something about the island itself.  Good afternoon and good evening are Bon tardi and Bon nochi. My favorite is saying thank you, Danki (pronounced Donkey).  And Mashi Danki is thank you very much. Your welcome is Di nada, and you always need to know excuse me and sorry: diskulpami and sori. It seemed I could not be polite enough to the wonderful people we met, I am ready to go back. And of course the most important for our group to use is, ban come: let’s eat.

Curaçao has been building its history since the Dutch arrived in 1634 and built Fort Amsterdam.  The capital, Willemstad, is a beautiful town with all the pastel-colored buildings you would expect in the Caribbean.

Yellow buildings are everywhere, and John Patrick tells us they are in a restaurant by the yellow building.  Looking around we see dozens of yellow building.  John’s yellow building, however, is in the fort, behind the 40-foot tall wall.  We found it.

canons in Curaçao pointing toward the water

Paliamento version: Geel buildings ta tur, í John Patrick tells nos nan ta den un restorant desde e geel edifisio. wak rondó nos mira dozens di geel edifisio. John’s geel edifisio ounke, ta den e fort, patras e 40 pia altu muraya. Nos funda e.

The diving around Curaçao was what I would call relaxing, varied, fairly easy.  Just off the resort, you swim thru the cut and can head left or right.  Pretty good reef dropping off to around 100ft of depth, not a lot of currents to deal with.  Lots of colors and marine life, and of course fewer Lion Fish than when we got there.  Boat dives took us to several reefs where we experienced many wonderful and fun dives.  Listen to the dive briefings and you will have a wonderful time.

On the trip back from Klein Curaçao, we got into a pod of dolphins, and the boat slowed and turned while we hooted and hollered and to picture and videos.

The people we met on our trip to Curaçao were some of the nicest people I have met while traveling.  The dive shop crew get my highest marks for any dive shop I have been to, behind of course my FAVORITE shop Extreme Sports Scuba.  The staff were very accommodating and were able to handle our requests in a timely and friendly manner.  Steel tanks…..check.  DIN valves…check.  Finding lost camera…check.

danki pa reading esaki blog.

SCUBA flags and a Chiefs Kingdom Flag

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