I walked into the lobby of my big box hotel reluctantly. The first unmistakable sign of reluctance creased its way onto my forehead as the doorman recited his scripted greeting, which I returned with a halfhearted "Thank you." Electro-lounge music filled the large entrance, the kind that was way past its 'cool' expiration date and is now on rotation in one of many locations around the world. It clashed heavily with the ringing and chiming of the slot machines across the way in the casino, followed enthusiastically by the occasional roar of excitement from the craps table.

I wished for a blessing and I took my chances "Excuse me, how far is the beach from the hotel?" I ask the front desk person. "Oh we have a beach sir! A private one."

A wave of relief washed over me...

"It is upstairs on the second floor"

...followed by a wall of confusion.

My rebuttal would have put a Harvard Law scholar to shame "Uhhhhhh...?"

"Yes Sir, take the elevator to the second floor, take a right, walk all the way down and it is on your right, next to the swimming pool."

It was either his enthusiastic look about a beach on the second floor combined with a welcoming Dutch-Antillean accent or the fact that we were indeed on the ground floor (I verified this with him mind you) which led me to one conclusion; go to sleep, just trust the guy he [obviously] knows what he is talking about - just figure it out tomorrow.

So there she was. Less than one hundred meters in length, white sand and an infinity edge; my first fake beach complete with starfish. My first day in Curacao turned out to be quite surprising.



I swam over to the infinity edge to watch the large ships enter the port of Willamstad and found it to be quite calming after all. I had never been on a fake beach before but the idea of being in the busy part of town and to be looking south towards Venezuela from an infinity edge beach became soothing. At the end of the day it is better than begging a friend for access to their rooftop pool in Washington, DC overlooking downtown.

As I stared out at the real thing, I felt a nagging feeling. I needed to find a real beach and Curacao has a lot of them. A lot of amazing ones, the adventure is on.

Labels: Beach, Caribbean, Curacao, man made beach, Netherland Antillies, Renaissance, Resorts, Willemstad