The haystack hill, and roughly 560 steps

The Hooiberg (Dutch for "haystack") is a volcanic hill about 165 meters high, and a concrete staircase with handrails runs from the parking area to the summit. Counts of the steps vary depending on who is counting and where they start. You will see anything from 560 to 600 quoted. Somewhere around 560 is the usual figure.

From the top you get the whole island at once: Oranjestad and the cruise port, the hotel strip along the west coast, the empty cunucu stretching east toward Arikok. On a genuinely clear day, the smudge on the southern horizon is the coast of Venezuela, about thirty kilometers away. Telling a nine-year-old they are looking at a different country from the top of a hill they just climbed is a good moment.

Be honest about the effort. It is a real climb: twenty to thirty minutes up for most families, with no shade whatsoever and no water at the top. In midday heat it is genuinely unpleasant and occasionally unsafe. Go in the first hour after sunrise or the last hour before sunset, take more water than you think you need, and turn around without guilt if the little one is done.