Choloma
- Details
On Thursday, August 29, 2013 a smaller than usual group went for a nature walk at the plantation of Choloma. Fred had a key to enter the gate, so we could drive till the first weekend house at the South-Western shore of the St Joris bay. There we parked our cars and started our hike. The group consisted of Fred, Carel with his niece Eliane, Eddy and me. The others had other activities this day.
Close to where our cars were parked there is a brackish pond; not directly connected to the bay but probably fed by salt water during high tide or strong winds and by fresh rain water flowing through the now dry river (roi). The old Werbata map shows that this is a area that is regularly flooded. The result is a nice pond with around it mangroves and fresh green trees. In and around the water lots of birds.
San Sebastian - old houses, well and indigo tank
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In the neighborhood of most country houses there was a small village with (slave) huts and other buildings. Most of these were still reasonably intact at the beginning of the 20th century according to the topographical map made by Werbata. The fact that these houses are shown as small orange (stone) or black (wooden) rectangles on the map means that the houses were still there in a recognisable form. Otherwise these would have been marked as ruins. Opposite the country house of San Sebastian such a village can be seen on the Werbata map. A ruin of a small building can be see from the road. Often this is denoted as the house of the vito (supervisor), but most probably this is a former milk house where the milk was placed for pickup for transport in the morning. It is too small for a house.
Rif St Marie - old houses
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More than 2 years since my previous visit to this area the archaeology sleuths went again to the former plantation of Rif St. Marie. This time we were interested in the many houses that are visible on the topographical map from the beginning of the 20th century (Werbata, 1909).
We parked our cars close to the intersection of the road to Coral Estate and the road to Daaibooi. In that area a dirt road made it easy to walk the first part to the old houses. That dirt road is the old road that is visible on the Werbata map.
Koenoekoe di sjon - Santa Martha
- Details
On the Werbata map (1909) there is an area called Koenoekoe di Sjon South of the road to Westpunt through Soto. There should be a ruin according to that map. A more recent map (1993) calls this area San Fernando and shows 4 large buildings and no trace of a ruin. More than enough reason for an investigation by the archaeology sleuths. So we parked our cars on the morning of Thursday July 25, 2013 opposite the doctor's office of Dr Lucasius.
In search of a rare tree on the Seru Kortapé
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A few weeks ago we went to the Seru Kortapé, a hill in the Plantation Knip. After we published pictures of that hike we got enthusiastic responses from a number of biologists. Apparently we had photographed for the first time the fruits of a rare tree, the Guettarda roupalifolia. Only two of these trees had been seen in Curaçao before and never one with fruits. So we got the friendly request to go back to the hill to collect fruits and/or seeds. Fred and I put the waypoints of the pictures of this tree in our GPS's and on Thursday a group of sleuths drove to Westpunt for this search.
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