Pam took today off without pay so we could get a head-start on the masses. And with an impending storm hitting Halifax tonight, we are glad we did just that! The alarm went at 5AM, our friend and neighbour, Jim, was in the driveway at 6:15AM, and we were having breakfast in the Maple Leaf Lounge at Halifax Airport by 7AM. The packed Air Canada flight to Toronto even left a few minutes early and, on such a nice March day, no de-icing was required.
Sigh of relief: so we made it to Toronto, so far so good. All was going well until I exited security at Pearson to mail a letter and then couldn't back in through Domestic Security to meet back up with Pam! What a to-do: you'd swear I had stolen the Crown Jewels or something and was on the run from the law! Long-story-short, I received a stern scolding from the Canadian Air Transport Security Agency about having exited security and trying to get back in via Domestic Security when I was bound for an international destination, blah blah blah. Before long, it was sorted out, and Pam and I were off through International Security for our flight to Curacao.
The two hours at Pearson flew by, with the help of lattés in the Maple Leaf Lounge there. By 11AM, they were boarding our Air Canada Rouge flight. Again, it was packed, but lo-and-behold, the only empty seat on the entire plane was next to us! So we stretched out and concocted a home-made 'first class' for the five-hour flight. We had pre-ordered meals, which weren't bad at all.
[ Making our own 'first class' experience with the only empty seat on the plane being in our row ]
This was our first Air Canada Rouge flight. Basically, they cram the rows closer together, reduce the amount of pitch for reclining your chair, give the attendants 'cool' uniforms, and do away with seat-back screens. It's a new business model that is creeping further and further into Air Canada.
We landed in Curacao 40 minutes early, at 5PM. A driver met us to take us into Willemstad (the capital city of 75,000 people) to pick up our rental car. By 6:45PM, we were checking into the Hilton Curacao, an older but well-established hotel on the edge of the city with a wonderful waterfront setup.
One of the first things we saw when we landed was a grouping of Insel Air MD-82 aircraft, all parked in a haphazard manner near a hanger. Insel Air is a Curacao-based airline that we had booked to get to our next stop in this itinerary: Georgetown, Guyana. Over the last week, it has all but ceased operations, which created a major wrinkle in our vacation plans, not to mention great stress as we worked to get it all sorted out. So seeing the grounded fleet parked at the airport was a sad sight indeed.
Curacao has a population of 151,000. Along with neighbouring Aruba and Bonaire, it makes up the Netherlands Antilles. Dutch is spoken here, along with Spanish, English, and a local dialect. Being 70 miles from Venezuala, the topography we have seen so far is a bit different from other Caribbean islands we have visited. For one thing, there are many cacti all over - they are more prolific than palm trees, in fact.
Tomorrow we will jump in our tiny Kia rental and start seeing a bit of the island. So stay tuned for details! Meanwhile, good night from Willemstad, Curacao which, fortunately, is on the same time zone as Halifax.
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