Plans to hit another beach today quickly fell to the wayside as we endured small sprinkles and higher than usual winds for most of the morning. My bride decided she wanted to go do the touristy thing instead. So we pulled up the map, found where we wanted to go and loaded up into the bus. Amazingly drove straight to it – in amongst the downtown area of Willemstad and Punta.
Found the ‘famous’ floating bridge (also known as the Queen Emma bridge), nice piece of engineering right there. Big pedestrian bridge that actually floats. It connects the 2 sections of the city. It also acts as a makeshift drawbridge. It actually disengages from one side of the bank and swings all the way open to allow boat traffic through. I was duly impressed with the way the whole thing worked. We stopped and had a cold beer and watched the throngs of people drifting by, pondering purchases of all the available local wares. Beautiful stuff, if you’re into that kind of thing. We walked some more, crossing the Queen Emma and then sat down in the shade with a Margarita and watched the bridge do it’s thing for a while and then headed out for more strolling around the downtown shopping area. Several big cruise ships in port. I gotta tell ya, I have seen hundreds of those ships, but it still fascinates me that can manage something that big.
We’re not really the touristy type folks and that kind of stuff is really not our gig, so after about an hour, we decided we had done our part to support the economy (also found a liquor store that had ‘our’ brand) 😉 and headed back to the bus. The downtown area is much better taken care of than the rest of the island and I think mot folks who journey there will enjoy it. Lots of folks of every size, shape and description… diversity at it’s best.
I did make an effort to replicate a picture # 2 Daughter took while she was there on her honeymoon — she sent it to us, trying to explain the floating bridge (which is why it is circled in yellow on her picture) Had a good time with that and was kinda neat we could connect the two together……
I’ve got a 2 tank dive planned for tomorrow — going to try out my newly acquired SCUBA skills…. looking forward to sharing that with you tomorrow~
Even these idiots put up Christmas stuff too early~~
