Hurricane? What Hurricane?

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A Port From the Storms
The Dutch-flavored Caribbean island of Curacao provides a warm, safe harbor from the threat of hurricanes. The island lies in a narrow ocean region at the southern tip of the Lesser Antilles where hurricanes rarely tread.

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Curacao's calm spirit belies a stormy past. Caiquetios Indians drifted to the island from Venezuela around A.D. 500, but Spanish explorers and slave hunters, who started running riot here in the late 1400s, quickly wiped them out. The Dutch staked their claim in the mid-1600s and soon thereafter established the island as a key slave-trading station. After World War II, the locals began a fierce battle for independence. Eventually, the Dutch crown relented by making Curacao an autonomous entity within the kingdom of the Netherlands in 1954. While the country is run by an elected parliament, the Hague holds sway over its defense and foreign affairs.

The government of the Netherlands and a conglomeration of Dutch businesses have created a sophisticated infrastructure. In contrast to the rustic bearings of other Caribbean outposts, Curacao has a network of well-paved roads, Internet cafes, convenient taxis and seemingly a cellphone in every hand. It's an appealing balance of natural beauty and urban edginess.

I stumbled onto the hip side one night at Blues, a classy outdoor music venue at the Avila Beach Hotel. Dave "Ronchi" Mathew and the Avila Blues Band, regulars here, performed a mix of jazz evergreens with self-styled island work songs. The crowd, a nattily dressed mix of tourists and locals, swayed with every song. With tropical cocktails flowing and a glorious view of the ocean, it could easily have been a posh club in Miami's South Beach.

It was during bar chatter that evening that the Curacaoans began to intrigue me. The population of 133,600 comprises an unusual ethnic mix. The inhabitants include descendants and natives of Africa, Holland and Latin America, and represent more than 50 nationalities. All the hotel staffers, store clerks and wait staff I met communicated ably in English, but they also switched easily among Dutch, Spanish and Papiamentu, a Creole dialect with roots in Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French and some African languages.

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Everyone from taxi drivers to bartenders had an intriguing yarn to recount. Dinah Veeris was the one who interested me most. The affable Curacao schoolteacher turned herbal healer said she was afflicted at an early age with several serious ailments. Her frustrations with traditional medicine led her to herbal cures, and after studying herbs in Holland and on her own for several years, she opened Den Paradera, an herbal farm and open-air learning center on the southeastern end of Curacao. There she tends more than 300 kinds of herbs and offers consultations to locals and visitors. Her goal, she told me when I dropped by the garden, is to restore the island's centuries-old adherence to herbal healing methods.

"Every herb has a story to tell, and so does every person," said Veeris, 67, a caramel-colored woman wearing a bright-green turban and long matching dress. "The same cure doesn't work for every person."

When I told her of my battle with high blood pressure, she asked me about my diet and what conventional medications I had tried. She prescribed an herbal tea and wrote out instructions on how to prepare it. Once home, I drank a cup every morning. After a few weeks, I couldn't swear I'd solved my problem, but the tea was tasty.

Winhmar Ricardo is another Curacao resident working to integrate aspects of European life on the island. During a recent stint in the Netherlands, the 23-year-old model and designer observed, close up, the progressive approach that many Dutch take toward gays. Back home, he has started trying to raise awareness on gay issues.

Curacao is one of a handful of Caribbean islands where same-sex couples live openly together and the reported incidence of homophobia is low. The island's tourism bureau also encourages gay travelers to visit and has a page for gay visitors on its Web site. More importantly, island promoters promise an atmosphere of tolerance toward all visitors.

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At 171 square miles, Curacao is easy to cover in a day. I began my explorations in the narrow streets of Willemstad, then drove along Westpunt Highway, the paved road that extends up and down the island.

The Museum Kura Hulanda, in downtown Willemstad, was a logical first stop. Although a museum seems an odd diversion in a place with such alluring natural attractions, this one was worth it. Billed as the most comprehensive public space in the Caribbean devoted to the history of slavery, it offers locals and outsiders an education in the political and economic importance of the slave trade.

An impressive storehouse of art, historical papers, books, sculpture, masks and artifacts, the museum takes visitors on a step-by-step journey through the history of slavery, from its roots in Africa to its abolition and aftereffects in the Caribbean and North America. One impressive exhibit explains in detail how Dutch traders and government officials used Curacao as a slave marketplace from the 1600s to 1863, when forced servitude in this corner of the world was abolished. Another haunting display takes visitors inside a replica of a trading ship.

Still in museum mode, I crossed the harbor for a peek into the 274-year-old Mikve Israel-Emanuel Synagogue, billed as the oldest continuously operating place of Jewish worship in the Western Hemisphere. A small structure with a handsome wooden interior, it was dedicated in 1732 for a Jewish community that came from Amsterdam in 1651. White sand covers the floors -- not only to symbolize the 40 years the Jews spent wandering the Sinai desert, a guide explained, but to represent the sand used by Jews to muffle their footsteps during the Inquisition.

Next up: The clusters of elegant low-rise houses lining the streets of Willemstad, many dating to the 18th century and designed in classic Dutch style. It's a refreshing change in a region dominated by chattel cottages and neocolonial architecture. Similarly striking are the many "landhouses," handsome mansions built mostly as country estates for wealthy Dutch families during the 1700s and 1800s. Many have been donated or sold by their owners to island organizations and are open to the public.

The Kura Hulanda, one of two hotels where I stayed, is another impressive example of island architecture. A complex of lovely low-rise houses dating to the 1700s (part of the same complex of buildings as the slavery museum), it opened as a hotel in 2001. The owners have taken pains to preserve the original style, retaining the handsome dark wooden floors and elegant high ceilings. The walls boast colorful murals hand-painted by local artisans, and guest rooms are furnished with wooden beds and bureaus imported from Indonesia.

The decor was lovely -- but I was, inevitably, drawn back to the beach. Playa Porto Mari, about five miles outside Willemstad, lured me with its long stretch of white sand and double coral reef. Cas Abou, a turn off the highway at Weg Naar Santa Cruz, is more secluded but no less spectacular, and I couldn't resist one last dip. Pausing to take in the cloudless sky and calm water, I took a picture of the scene in my mind, and held it there until the sun began to sink.