Curacao: the Westpoint

Curacao is a small island: 55 km. long and 4 to 14 km. wide.
The Westpoint is the sparsely inhabited part.

Of course my Australian and Canadian family know all about sparsely inhabited. So, anyone else, think of the Canadian prairies and the Aussie Outback and you'll have the general idea of the Westpoint.

On one third of the island, on the eastern part, lies the capital Willemstad and the airport. From the airport you catch the one and only road to the west. If you continue that road you'll finally arrive back in Willemstad. Continuing that road - you follow the northern coast - you can take a couple of shortcuts to the southern part of the island, if you don't, you'll end up there anyway.

For us, living in the most populated part of Western Europe, that's fascinating.
But not when we got out of our plane and were shoved rather unceremoniously into a car, to drive to our holiday destination: a Rancho near the village of (appropiately named) Westpunt, south of the most western tip of the island. 'Just drive and it'll be on your right hand'.

After green and luscious Holland we were rather shocked. This was supposed to be the Tropics, right? but is was arid, dusty, barren, shabby and rather filthy (think road sides full of plastic garbage). This was Not what we had expected.

But we got used to it, and quickly adjusted. Within two days we were thoroughly happy having chosen this part of the island to stay and were pleased with what we saw. After all it was quite the contrary of Holland - hence a very pleasant detour from our usual surroundings.