Cacti, Rocks and a Fort
Its places like this while visiting Curaçao made me feel like I wasn't in the Caribbean anymore even though by all means we were! Our next adventure takes us east of the City we visited on our last blog post called Willemstad to Fort Beekenburg. This place was so beautiful in its own way with gigantic cacti, desertous rock formations and unorthodoxly shaped hills!
As we got closer to the tourist site, it felt more and more like we were in Mexico or western United States with so many dry climate cacti and lagoons here and there. The rock formations were the most beautiful things to look at in this area of the island of Curaçao. The nearby coastline showed its amazing colors with mesmerizing blue waters and was a great contrasting pairing to the previously described landscape.
We got to the what the GPS said was the entrance of the fort. There were these huge rocks that towered over the car near a beach front. We parked near one of them for shade and gathered our things as we looked for the entrance.
It did not take us long to find the entrance as there were some stairs and a sign that lead up a large rock formation. The I just loved the look of the whole place. A typical Caribbean view has lush green bush and so on everywhere and I was just delighted to feel like I wasn't in the Caribbean anymore with these kind of scenes.
The sign said Fort Beekenburg on the top and we were relieved to know that we had indeed gotten to the right place after driving for an hour and something! I would still have been happy to see such desert beauty anyway if we had ended up in the wrong place!
We ascended the stairs and crossed the entrance to the fort that was basically just a large black door as you can see in the GIF above. I was amazed to see upon entering, that there were so many large canons as well as a multitude of large cacti many times taller than we were! I had never in my life seen succulents that large! It gave the fort a different aesthetic that it was being slowly overtaken by nature yet still standing strong.
On the right side of the entrance there were these weathered and rusted remains of canons that seemed to have actually been used in times of invasion! The mind ran wild with imagination thinking about what these artifacts may have seen or what role they may have played in history.
This is what the entrance looked like from the other side of the door. you can see a cacti and get a gauge of the scale of the things!
The ramparts with the actual canons were on the left of the entrance was fitted out with newer looking canons fit for duty. In the distance to the top right we noticed that there was a tower of the fort. We thought that this was just it but apparently there was much more to explore! We will get to the tower in a bit.
Here is a closer look at the ramparts. As someone from the Caribbean, where there are forts everywhere, even in my home country, these were some of the best looking canons in great condition I had ever seen.
The little housed area just infront of the canons has just enough space for one man to stand inside. I wonder what is purpose was? To provide cover in times of invasion or for ammunition storage?
Here is a view of the ocean from the ramparts and the peninsula that projected out into the ocean. You cannot see it in this shot but the water just below us (as we were on a cliff of sorts) were amazingly blue.
Water near a fort had no business looking this good! I was amazed! This seemed to be an industrial area as well and damn! Even the non recreational waters of Curaçao were mesmerizingly beautiful!
This is a view of the area where we parked with the two rocks. At this point the water was so nice looking that we were contemplating taking a dip before leaving!
When we had our fill of the ramparts, we set out sites on the fort tower. It looked like one of those proper medieval towers and this was so exciting. There were so many cacti and so on we were not sure how to enter.
We ended up just walking towards the tower through the large cacti and bushes as well as brambles. We got to a wall that bordered the tower and more brambles! Still we trooped onwards braving the scrapes and pricks, walking along the wall to find and entrance.
Finally we got to an opening along the wall that was the entrance! There were two people walking out of the tower who said we took the long and treacherous way around! How hilarious! Either way it was a hell of fun and did not regret exploring on our own terms.
We entered and started climbing up a hill that seemed to lead up to the stairway that takes you up to the tower. The wind was strong and wanted to impede our progress up the hill but it was just refreshing for the Curçaoan heat!
We quickly climbed the stairs which was really high and basically took us to the top of the tower and its ramparts.
Once up upon the tower there was a doorway that looked like a window. Inside was very claustrophobia inducing and I did not want to go inside, neither did my wife! I doh want no jumbie jump out and hold me!
The above GIF shows a better view of the door and the rest of the view upon the ramparts as well as more canons that seemed to be much smaller and thinner than the other we encountered below.
The view from up here was amazing and we got a nice scene of all around except for that upon the land side view. You could definitely spot a fleet of ships from very far away and from any angle!
The cliff faces on the other side of the shore in the distance were so beautiful and intricate!
After feeling a bit claustrophobic, I sent up the drone to get some amazing shots of the tower. When I did see where we were in relation to the ocean, I was so surprised to see that we were so high up!
This shot was amazing as we got the tower and canons as well as the large cacti and this large pointy escarpment in the background that we did not notice on our way here until the drone shots.
Flying out further, you can see more of the cliff face we were upon as well as the beautiful waters that surrounded the fort. What an eye pleasing scene!
This is a view from behind the tower giving a great view of the cliff faces in the distance as well as the walls that bordered the tower and all the surrounding vegetation. You can see the bush, cacti and brambles that we walked through around the wall almost stupidly! Also, look how tall those cacti are compared to the tower for scale!
All in all, this adventure was amazing and it felt like we had indeed left the Caribbean with its desertous features and plants as well as geological rock formations! Fort Beekenburg will be an unforgettable experience, thanks for coming along! Cheers!