Curaçao, part 2

Dan and I awoke late, to discover that we both felt poorly. We had no energy to do anything more than go downstairs to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. As we sat at the table we realized that we never rest when we travel; most of our time is spent out and about with our cameras. Today, however, we didn't want to go anywhere. Perhaps tomorrow we would get back to our normal routine and squeeze in a bit more sightseeing before our plane left.

By the time our meal was over all the lounge chairs on the white sand beach were occupied. The infinity-edge, free-form pool still had spots available though, so we plopped down under an umbrella with our books. As usual, speed reader me finished quickly. I went to the gift shop to find another book and was shocked to see that the books were all $15 and up. (What do I know? I always go to the library.) When I came back empty-handed Dan chided me and said, "buy it anyway, you need something to read." So back I went, found a book and charged it to the room. I made small talk with the saleslady, telling her Dan had made me come back. She laughed, "I want to meet that man and shake his hand."

I hadn't noticed before, but when I returned Dan pointed out a couple of older women who were sunbathing topless and asked if it was not a big deal on the island. "Search me," I said, "I burn too easily to even contemplate such a thing." We took a dip in the pool to cool off -- wearing our bathing suits -- before laying down again and were soon lulled to sleep by the sun and our Sansa Fuze mp3 players.

When we awoke we carried our snorkeling gear down to the water's edge and donned it. We swam out to a pier and looked at all the fish, some of which we'd had in our saltwater aquarium back in Florida. After about 20 minutes in the water we realized we just didn't have the energy to continue safely so we dragged ourselves out of the water to return to our chairs and take a long nap.

Note to self: If all the beach chairs are occupied in the morning, you can often find an empty one when all the beach-goers have gone to look for something to lunch on.

Dan and I dropped our accoutrements on two of the beach's unoccupied lounge chairs and found a cafe table close enough to keep an eye on our belongings. There was little on the menu to choose from but the chicken fingers and beer we finally ordered put us in the mood for another nap. I can't remember the last time I'd slept as much. I awoke only when I needed to reposition my lounge chair into the shade cast by the thatched umbrella.

Later Dan and I moseyed over to the tiki bar and claimed seats at the bar in full view of the wide-screen TV so we could watch the Super Bowl. We thought of Dan's family back in Florida who are rabid Steeler fans. Today was a High Religious Holiday for them. Two drinks and a dinner later, when we realized that the Packers were going to trounce the Steelers, we decided to call it a night and went back to our room.


This was the first time we did nothing for an entire day when we were away from home, but it was a day well-spent nonetheless.