{"id":145,"date":"2025-11-25T02:10:50","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T02:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wellbalancedadventures.com\/?p=145"},"modified":"2025-11-26T15:09:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T15:09:11","slug":"how-to-spend-a-port-day-in-curacao-kura-hulanda-village","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wellbalancedadventures.com\/?p=145","title":{"rendered":"How to Spend a Port Day in Cura\u00e7ao: Kura Hulanda Village"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My dad decided that he wanted to celebrate his 60th birthday on an 8 day Carnival Cruise with ~40 of his closest friends and family members. I\u2019m not a fan of cruises generally – I don\u2019t like feeling trapped on a ship and don\u2019t like large crowds of people – but I was super excited to celebrate with my dad. In true *me* fashion, I made sure that my brother, aunt, and I would have fun during the port days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My favorite day was spent in Cura\u00e7ao. Cura\u00e7ao is one of the ABC (Aruba, Bonaire, Cura\u00e7ao) Islands that are autonomous countries of The Netherlands; all citizens have Dutch passports. My family and I decided to spend our port day in the Kura Hulanda Village – a neighborhood that has been revitalized over the past 25 years and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Museum Kura Hulanda<\/strong>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our first stop was to the Museum Kura Hulanda. The museum was opened by a Dutch man who somehow obtained a variety of artifacts from various African countries. The story on how he obtained\/ was reportedly gifted these artifacts is unknown per the museum, but the collection was impressive. Unfortunately, the story and meaning behind a lot the items in the museum are unknown, but our tour guide was a great storyteller and provided what information he could<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Snack: RustiQ Cura\u00e7ao<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After our 90 minute tour, we walked across the street to RustiQ Cura\u00e7ao for a snack and drinks. The restaurant\u2019s menu changes often, but we ate fried polenta and sweet plantains as well as had a variety of local juices that were freshly made. The restaurant was reasonably priced and prepped us for some shopping. We kept walking down the village and found a cute boutique called Devi Clothing and More where I found a dress to wear to a Labor Day party and my aunt found some cute jewelry.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Art Gallery<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We then stumbled upon one of my favorite art galleries of the year: The Gallery by Bagira<\/a>. Bagira is a young artist who moved to Cura\u00e7ao at the age of 21 and has since become a well-known muralist and artist on the island and internationally. While I am not an artist by any means, I was impressed by the detail and feeling in each piece we saw, especially since she states that her paintings are imagined. The gallery is free to enter and she has paintings and prints for sale inside – I highly recommend that you check it out!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Dinner: Caleo <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now onto what I was most looking forward to – dinner. While I keep a vegetarian diet about 90% of the time, I am always going to eat fish while in Latin America and the Caribbean. We went to Caleo<\/a> which focuses on crudos (raw fish) and dishes made a la parrilla (grilled). We shared the bread that came with a fancy herb and lime infused butter, and I had the oysters with aji blanco as well as the ceviche. If I could order again, I\u2019d probably get the oysters with the mignonette since I prefer an acid to cut the texture of the oyster. However, I would order the ceviche time and time again. I loved the pureed sweet potato as a play on the traditional Peruvian ceviche as well as the sharpness of the tomatillos to contrast the leche de tigre. Highly recommend. I ordered a mezcal drink with a roasted poblano base and my aunt had a moscow mule; both were delicious.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Bread with homemade butter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Oysters with aji blanco<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Full table spread<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Whether you are stopping in Cura\u00e7ao for a port day or staying for a longer period of time, I\u2019d recommend spending a day in the Kura Hulanda Village for a day of shopping, art, and delicious foods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My dad decided that he wanted to celebrate his 60th birthday on an 8 day Carnival Cruise with ~40 of his closest friends and family members. I\u2019m not a fan of cruises generally – I don\u2019t like feeling trapped on a ship and don\u2019t like large crowds of people – but I was super excited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[20,21,22],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-caribbean","tag-art","tag-cruise","tag-port-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellbalancedadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellbalancedadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellbalancedadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellbalancedadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellbalancedadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wellbalancedadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":166,"href":"https:\/\/wellbalancedadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions\/166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellbalancedadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellbalancedadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellbalancedadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellbalancedadventures.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}