At the end of the year 2019 I will stop organizing weekly hikes. No specific reason; I just decided that after 6 years of doing this the moment has come to do something else. I certainly will continue hiking and taking pictures, just no longer as a guide but as a participant or on my own.

I have decided to keep the facebook page of Curaçao Hiking alive and to use that page to further promote hiking in Curaçao.

With the introduction of the new version of the hike to the Kabrietenberg (Mountain of the goats) a new challenging hike became part of the offering. I would classify the different routes as follows:

Most challenging hikes

• Mountain of the goats / Kabrietenberg
  Challenging because of duration and number of climbs/descents
• Seru Jamanika
  Challenging because of duration and challenging climb and descent of the Seru Jamanika

These two hikes will be done in a higher pace than my other hikes and with less explanation during the hike.

After a hike I normally post pictures of that hike on my facebook page. That is easy and convenient. But when you want to look back at previous hikes you have to scroll down quite a bit to find these. To make it easier to look at pictures of previous hikes I have created a new website with pictures taken during the scheduled hikes, pictures taken during hikes with other hiking organizations in Curaçao, pictures taken during my own hikes or hikes with friends and, last but not least, my pictures of the beautiful underwater world of Curaçao. All this can be found at https://johndohmen.smugmug.com/

At the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century there was a blooming indigo production in Curaçao. A lot of the plantations had planted indigo plants and had built indigo tanks to produce the indigo dye for export to the Netherlands. The dye was in high demand there.
I have simulated the indigo production process at a much smaller scale. The original process has been described in a old Dutch document "Brieven en Papieren van Curaçao en Onderhoorige Eilanden" (Letters and Papers from Curaçao and its subordinate islands). More specific in the "Memorie Om Indigo Zaat te planten, schoon te maken, te snijden, te slaan, en voorts tot Indigo te bearbeijden in manieren als volgt" (Memorandum how to plant indigo seed, clean, cut and beat the plants to produce indigo). This memorandum is part of book 204, part (folio) 39 - 41. Full source reference: Nationaal Archief Den Haag (A.R.A.) 2e WIC toegang 01.05.01.02 inventaris nummer 204, folio 39 - 41 transcribed by S. H. Vautier. The text is published in the Archiefvriend in June 2006. I will not translate the old Dutch text into English but will just quote the transcribed Dutch text. After each part of the original text I will describe the process in English as I repeated it in 2014 on a much smaller scale.