One Happy Island

The final stop on our vacation was the beautiful island of Aruba, a mere 17 miles from the coast of Venezuela* in the Caribbean Sea. The unofficial motto is "One Happy Island," and it is ... it was one of the most pleasant, beautiful, and return-worthy places we visited on the cruise!

The good ship Coral Princess arrived in the harbor of Oranjestad** at about 12:30 in the afternoon, and soon thereafter we were off and running on our whirlwind tour of the island. Our first indication that Aruba was, indeed, one happy island was this tour bus waiting for passengers ...

We had signed up for a tour titled "Semi-Submarine, Shipwreck, and Island Drive," and it began with a short bus ride to the DePalm pier and a transfer to a boat which took us offshore to another ship, the Seaworld Explorer ...

This was advertised as a "semi-submersible" vessel, meaning that we boarded from our transfer boat, passed through the hatch visible on the left (port) side, and went down a steep stairway to two rows of seats next to large windows below the waterline. Once we were all aboard, the captain motored us a bit further out to sea, where he cruised in a large circle around the wreck of the freighter Antilla. The Antilla was a German ship that was scuttled by her crew in May of 1940 rather than being surrendered to the Dutch, and the wreckage now serves as a haven for large schools of fish and a budding coral reef. It was difficult to take pictures from inside the Seaworld Explorer, but this one gives you a small example of what we were able to see from our dry seats under the water ...

When our underwater tour was finished, we transferred back to the transit boat and returned to the dock to re-board the bus and head to our next stop - the California Lighthouse. This is a picture of the lighthouse I shot from the boat, and it gives you a good idea of the beautiful white sand beaches and sapphire-blue water for which Aruba is justly famous ... 

However, most of the rest of the island was, as we were soon to learn, a bit different ...

Unlike the other places we'd visited on our cruise, where the temperature was usually in the mid- to upper nineties and the humidity in the high 90% range, the climate on Aruba is very dry, with mild temperatures (low 80's the day we were there) and pleasant sea breezes. There is almost no fresh water on the island - drinking water is provided by desalinization plants - and the landscape is not tropical, as I'd expected, but arid. Most of the interior of the island was not much different from Arizona, with all sorts of cactus and thorny plants predominating. This picture shows one of the highest points on the island, the Hooiberg ("haystack"), with typical plant life surrounding it ...

We drove around the island to the site of the California Lighthouse, named for the ship California, which sunk in 1908, two years before the lighthouse was built. As it turned out, there was no particular reason to visit the lighthouse, as it has been closed to visitors for several years, ever since someone decided to try a vertical descent from the top rather than negotiate the stairs. This is too bad, as the views from the top would have no doubt been spectacular. As it was, the stop simply offered a chance to use the rest rooms at a nearby restaurant (for a 50-cent fee), purchase a drink from a tourist-trap kiosk, and take lots of pictures of thorny cactuses (cacti?).

Leaving the lighthouse, we continued on to the Casibari Rock Formation, which is ... well ... a formation of large rocks. It's an interesting and picturesque area, but I've seen lots of rocks before in other places that were a bit more interesting and picturesque. Here's a picture of one part of the area to give you an idea of what it looks like ...

From there, we headed out to the northern end of the island and the much-ballyhooed  "Baby Natural Bridge." It seems that the large and relatively imposing original natural bridge, carved out by centuries of surf pounding against the shore, collapsed a few years ago. In order to have a reason for tourists to continue returning to this end of the island, a much smaller (baby) natural bridge was selected as the new focus for visitors. This is how the original bridge looks now ...

... and this is the new bridge ... the sign on top of the arch just right of center warns people to stay off, as they'd rather this one not collapse, too ...

Do you remember those beautiful white sand beaches we talked about earlier? Not here. On the northern end of the island the landscape is starkly beautiful, with blue seas and white surf breaking against dark, jagged rocks, as shown in these pictures ...

You really don't want to go barefoot on these beaches!

On the drive back to the harbor I took a number of pictures from the bus of Aruban architecture and landscaping. Most of the houses are painted orange, white, blue, or a combination thereof, and there aren't a lot of flowers in evidence, compared to the more tropical locations. Most of the pictures I shot didn't come out very well because of the reflections on the bus windows, but this one isn't too bad, and shows a pretty typical example of both architecture and landscaping. You can't see much of the house, but trust me - it's there ...

And so ended our all-too-short visit to the beautiful island of Aruba. Of all the places we visited on this trip, the two we'd probably most like to revisit are Costa Rica (for the hot springs) and Aruba (for the ambience and lovely climate). And Costa Rica also offered a beautiful sunset ...

That's all for now. Tomorrow, I'll regale you with a few general comments and observations on our trip, and a few last pictures. Be here.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Where Hugo Chavez won yesterday's election in the name of his "Bolivarean Revolution." Somehow, I think the great South American hero Simon Bolivar would have considered Mr Chavez an odious buffoon.

** The name means "Orange City." Since Aruba is an autonomous part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, many signs and place names are in Dutch, rather than Spanish or the native Indian language, Papiamento. Oranjestad is the capital of Aruba, which is also one of the so-called "ABC Islands" - Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao.