Santa Barbara Tafelberg

Tafelberg (Table Mountain) is a large flat-topped hill in Curaçao, an island state in the Dutch Caribbean.

The Tafelberg mesa is in southeastern Curaçao, near the Santa Barbara beach. It is 196.1 metres (643 ft) high, making it only the fourth-highest point on Curaçao behind the 372 metres (1,220 ft) Christoffelberg and two intermediate peaks, all in the volcanic northwest of the island. It is formed mostly of the Quaternary limestone that forms the south-east of Curaçao, although there are also commercially-significant phosphate and calcareous sand deposits.

Fossils of Pleistocene giant tortoises, Chelonoidis, of an estimated 80 centimetres (31 in) carapace length have been found in fill deposits.

The vegetation of the area is sparse, owing to the endemic lack of water on Curaçao. Comparisons of grazed and inaccessibly ungrazed areas show that the natural vegetation was predominantly of the bromeliad Tillandsia flexuosa, but that this could not tolerate grazing and since the introduction of livestock by humans, primarily goats, has largely been replaced by annual grasses, prickly pear and shrubby acacias.