Photo by http://www.mappery.com/
Whats a better way to enjoy a Caribbean island then to get the opportunity to hike up a mountain on one. Curaçao is a truly unique island, from the culture, to the dry climate and hilly terrain. I am new to the world of outdoors and hiking in general and fortunately, leaving the urban and beach world has allowed me to get a new feel for the outdoors in South and North Carolina close to the mountains. After I made Curaçao my choice of travel, I was blown away at the thought of being able to hike a mountain on the island. I mean after all, one thing that captures my heart in any destination is an overlook with memorable views.
After discovering a photo on Instagram and with thorough research, hiking up this mountain was a must. Fortunately, I made a great friend through the website, CouchSurfing, who had the same interest in doing this activity. Second day of my arrival, we woke up early and headed straight to the north of the island from Willemstad. Now leaving early is not just to have the whole day to do more than just hike. It just simply gets far too hot to go up. The park itself has a curfew at 11am to close the park to any further hikers of going up and possibly passing out en route. I personally was not trying to be a statistic, if there is a statistic.
Fortunate for us, the skies were filled with clouds allowing us to leave the strain only to our muscles along the way up. The hike starts off with a drive down a narrow road going around the smaller hills around the park. At some point you reach a “parking lot” where you most likely meet other like minded hikers ready for a rewarding trip. On foot you start off on a simple non intimidating flat trail. After about 10 minutes or so the hike begins to include moderate steps up. Those steps up start turning into higher leg raises for a better leg workout. 30 minutes in those leg workouts turn into glute and leg workouts and you do higher raises to higher elevations. At this point you begin to see fairly nice views of the Caribbean Sea. Another 15 minutes in your leg and glute work out turns into an arm and back workout as your hands play a role into getting above and around rocks and fallen trees. The final 15 minutes of this trail gets the most straining and the most strenuous as you basically have to utilize your whole body in an obstacle course of boulders and trees. At some point you are all that is between two large boulders and need to barely squeeze your way through.
These boulders are a success marker as you are basically to the top with another few feet of incline and are rewarded with one of the best views in the Caribbean or even the world. At the top you have a nice 360 pan-am of the north part of the island. On a clear day you may be able to see the whole island. Oddly, there is a tall column at the top to take pictures on or with. I’ll call it the main point of the top if I have to, but there is actually two main ways up once towards the top. While at the top, I noticed other people in the distance on other smaller tips sitting enjoying the views as well. After a sufficient amount of photos and video and messing around with an iguana, I finally decided to head back down the same way I went up which is a different workout within itself.
This hike is not something I recommend to people with bad knees. On the way up we passed by three people who fell at some point coming down because of, weak knees. Slip at the wrong spot could result in serious injury or worse off death. As I have stated before, hiking is something completely new to me. Hiking up Christoffelberg took my hiking experience from a 10 to a 100 in regards to difficulty. Because fitness and health is a big part of my lifestyle, this was rather extremely fun and I enjoyed every second, although my skin got hammered with wind burn and some sun burn. Altogether, the experience was very adventurous and was a great way to start my adventure in the island of Curaçao. Better yet, standing at the top was a perfect symbol of successful travels.
