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Located just off the northern coast of Venezuela, Curacao (pronounced "kur-ah-sow") is part of the ABC Islands chain - Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao - which in turn is part of the Netherlands. Curacao is probably best known for its namesake Valencia orange liquour that comes in a rainbow of colors, for its tropical-colored Amsterdam-style architecture, and for its excellent dive sites. But this remote, arid island offers much more, including a colorful floating market, plenty of beaches, and a unique "tumba" music.
Curacao also has a reputation for racial and religious tolerance. Its population is an eclectic mix of forty different nationalities, many of whom can be seen chatting on their cell phones while walking across the swinging Queen Emma pontoon bridge in to Willemstad--the island’s capital and a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site.
Across the harbor from Willemstad is one of the island’s newest attractions. The magnificent Kura Hulanda complex consists of a five-star hotel and a unique museum dedicated to telling the story of the island’s slave trade. Amazingly, this spectacularly lovely spot was previously a slum. It was also once one of the largest slave depots in the Caribbean, as Curacao was where many captured Africans were processed enroute to the New World.
The aesthetically magnificent Museum Kura Hulanda opened in 1999. Built from sixteen 18th- and 19th-century Dutch colonial homes--on the very site where slaves once arrived on the island--it is the vision of Jacob Gelt Dekker. His wish is to document and attempt to tell the story of the African slave trade as it applies to the area, and to demonstrate that it was based on economics, not racism. The facts leave visitors stunned.
Museum visitors can climb down into the cramped hold of a replica wooden ship and see the shackles and tight spaces these captured people were subjected to. More of Dekker’s staggeringly impressive private collection is artistically presented in a replica slave prison from Senegal and in replica slave huts.
Several rooms are dedicated to other facets of Curacao’s past--including the Dutch settlers--and to other non-Western cultures of the world. And since Kura Hulanda means "Dutch courtyard" in the native Papiamentu language, it is appropriate that the museum surrounds a lovely courtyard.
Adjacent, the 67-room Hotel Kura Hulanda is a village of cobblestone walkways leading to sculpture gardens, two sumptuously landscaped pools, and an assortment of boutiques, restaurants, and bars. Guest rooms are situated inside meticulously restored 18th- and 19th-century Dutch Caribbean buildings, and each is uniquely furnished with handcrafted era reproductions made by artisans from around the world. Rooms are spacious, with soft fabrics, high four-poster beds, carved furniture, Indian marble bathrooms, hand-painted wall decoration, high open-beam ceilings, and both ceiling fans and air conditioning. Guests can relax over a snack at tables sprinkled around the grand courtyard, stroll out the gates into town, or arrange to visit a nearby beach club or golf course.
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