I have taken up temporary residence at Curacao airport, where my Dutch Antilles Express flight is delayed until 20:00 tonight. It is now 16:00. The airport is ok if you don't mind sitting around in plastic seats in the sweltering heat dribbling sweat into your coffee and your shoes.
I contacted Mike and Audrey again yesterday and together we sallied forth to discover hitherto unexplored Curacao. Well, the company may have been good, but the island was, by common consent, a bit disappointing. However I must exhort you all to spend extraordinary sums of money, time and effort to see the hopelessly inaptly-named Playa Grande and the piece-de-resistence, Watamola (although I'm sworn to secrecy regarding what this is, I'm afraid). We did get a nice meal in downtown Wilemstad on the way back, and a quick nightcap (for me, anyway) at Sarifundy's. For those of you thinking of visiting by yacht, please note the picture showing you the way in.
Today was pretty boring, although courtesy of the ubiquitous Discovery Channel, I have now found out how tyres are recycled, how telescopes work, what the SETI programme is doing, and why there is no such thing as free energy. Pity it was all in Spanish, and I fear I may have missed the finer points of quantum kinetics as a result. Muy bien.
I'm looking forward to getting to Caracas only because it's on the way home. To be more precise, I'm looking forward to getting to Caracas in time to get my onward Varig connection at 23:55. If all goes to plan I'll be in Manaus by 02:50 tomorrow. So you can look forward to some water-level updates pretty soon now...