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
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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.
Seru Kabayé between Porto Marie and Daaibooi
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The previous two weeks we investigated the two hills on both sides of Playa Hunku on the plantation Porto Marie. We checked for traces of indian and slave habitation and for forts. This time our attention went to the third hill on this plantation with a view towards the sea, the Seru Kabayé. This is a long hill lying between the bay of Porto Marie and Daaibooi. We wanted to check for remains of a fort or observation post on this hill. And of course we wanted to find out if there are any Nipple cacti on this hill.
Porto Marie near Playa Hunku
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On Thursday July 4, 2013, a small group consisting of François, Fred, Michèle and I went once again to Playa Hunku on the plantation of Porto Marie. We wanted to look again for remnants of slaves habitation in this area and we expected to find remnants of a fort on one of the hills next to this bay.
But first I made a stop at the church of Willebrord. Last week I had seen something that looked like the ruin of a large cistern at a close distance from the church. And indeed this was a reasonably intact building which purpose was to collect water. Originally it had a roof, but the roof apparently collapsed. Parts of the roof are on the floor. There is still water in the cistern. The large roof of the church collects large amounts of water during rainfall and apparently this building was used to save it for a dryer period; maybe even to provide water to the nearby village of Willebrord. There would be no need for such a large cistern just for the church. The size is comparable to a similar building near Fort Beekenburg; that cistern was used to collect water for the former hospital in that area.
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