Tropical Dutch (part 1): Curaçao

The island of Curaçao, a former colony of the Netherlands and nowadays part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is a long way by canal barge from central Amsterdam. Apart from being Dutch, Curacao is also part of the Caribbean, and geologically part of South America. In fact, it's only about 40 miles away from the northern coast of Venezuela. Conveniently for me it's Dutch heritage means it has direct flights to Schiphol airport in the Netherlands, thus providing one route for getting to Europe from South America. Which is what I'm doing. In this case there is a layover, of two weeks, on a Caribbean island. Damn.

It's pronounced cur-a-sow, the bit under neath the second 'c' in Curaçao  makes it an 's' sound.

Being so close to Venezuela, there is a strong Latin American influence on top of the already strong Dutch influence. The local language, Papiamento is a creole containing bits of Spanish and Dutch but based oddly on Portuguese, perhaps as a consequence of the slave industry based here which fed the huge demand for slaves from Brazil.

Many of the large colonial buildings that remain in the main city Willemstad are a consequence of the slave trade in the Caribbean. In fact there is a very good black history museum in Willemstad that focuses on the slave trade, it's located at Kura Hulanda, the site of a former slave yard and merchant's house.

Rather dutch looking buildings in Willemstad, Curacao

There are also some excellent deco style buildings in Curacao. 

And pink flamingos

Nice beach, shame about the leviathan. A huge cable laying ship at Caracas Bay, Curacao. Closer to shore there are families swimming and sunbathing. 

Caribbean Dutch (part 2) will be from Suriname, when I go there in November.

Back in Ecuador

So I´m back in Ecuador. In fact I've been here since late January. I rushed over from Japan where I had been teaching for two years at Chuo University in Tokyo (I had two blogs then, one in English about my experiences, the other in Japanese, about my research).

I´m now a professor of psychology at Universidad San Francisco de Quito, the highest ranked university in the country. Although that may say more about the standard of the competition than the achievements of the university per se. Ecuadorian universities barely feature in the list of the best in Latin America. When it comes to the best in the World, the best of Latin America barely feature.

The academic years overlap between Tokyo and Quito, so even flying over here, I arrived nearly a month late. In fact, I arrived on a Thursday evening and began semi-coherent jett-lagged teaching the next morning, already 4 weeks into the semester.

On arrival I found out that despite my super-human efforts to get here, nobody had arranged an office for me. In fact my arrival seemed almost a surprise. Eventually, after four weeks of complaining, I got somewhere to work, in fact quite a nice office. I share it with two others, a historian called Anna and a pot plant called Allan. We all get on fine, though Allan is a little needy at times.

And we've bought an apartment. By ´we´ I mean Helen, my wife and I, not Allan and I. It´s best to keep work and home life separate. It's a small flat with a big view over Quito.

Quito from our apartment

I've been working almost continuously since I got back, nevertheless there have been a few opportunities to explore the country at weekends. Probably the most interesting event in Quito since I arrived back was Easter week, as in many Latin American countries this is marked with various catholic parades. In Quito many people carry large crucifixes around the city. Some demonstrate their faith in other ways.

Cacti crucifixes during the Easter parades in Quito

I also had an opportunity to visit Ingapirca, the best preserved Inca ruins in Ecuador. These are not well known in comparison to the globally famous Machu Pichu in Peru. We visited during the Inti Raymi festival, an Inca celebration to the Sun God.

Inca ruins at Ingapica

Indigenous American music and dance at the the Inti Raymi festival in Ingapirca

It´s good to be back in Ecuador, it´s an interesting place. But I do miss Tokyo a little. That's a great place too. This is the problem with travelling around the world, you end up being nostalgic for so many different places.