Bon dia! That means "good day!" in Papiamentu, a creole language in Curaçao. Brooke and I loved our stop at The Curaçao Museum, but we were excited to see the next stop on our day trip- Hato Caves! My family has visited Carlsbad Caverns many times, so I was excited to see the caves on Curaçao. Our mini bus parked in the parking lot and we climbed up 49 steps to the entrance of the cave. It was so beautiful inside! The first part of the cave gets some light in it, but pretty soon, you are in complete darkness! The guide turned off the lights to show us just how dark that is- yikes!
There are several different rooms in the limestone caves. The caves are formed in the limestone rock by the dripping water. You can see stalactites and stalagmites there. There are also bats fluttering high above if you shine a flashlight at the ceiling of the cave. It's such a beautiful place. I learned from our guide that the Arawak and Caiquetio indigenous peoples used these caves around 1,500 years ago. They even made petroglyphs, which are pictures carved into the rock.
Brooke and I really enjoyed seeing the caves, though the pools of water made us a little nervous. Because the caves are always growing, due to the water dripping through the limestone, there are standing pools of water in different parts of the cave system. If you don't have light with you, it would be pretty scary in there!
Our guide told us that during the times when slavery was legal on Curaçao, enslaved people would sometimes use these caves to hide when they sought their freedom. During our trip through the Caribbean, we learned a lot about different things enslaved people did during those horrible years. Though the stories made both me and Brooke really sad, they made us feel extra committed to making sure that kind of thing never happens again.
Once we finished viewing the Hato Caves, we climbed back down the 49 steps to the little café by the parking lot. Can you see the sign behind me? It says that the fruits are poisonous and should NOT be touched. Yikes! Do you see all the different languages on the sign? That's pretty typical in Curaçao!
Soon it was time to get back on our mini bus and head to our next stop! Danki (thank you in Papiamentu!) for reading about my trip to Hato Caves!
Have you ever visited a cave?
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