Week ending Jan 11,2018 Aruba

On Friday, after cleaning up the trailer, we headed into Phoenix to Preflight parking about 4:30.  Everything went smoothly, even got upgraded to economy plus (5 inches of extra legroom) on the Phoenix to Chicago leg when we did our boarding passes about 5 hours ahead of boarding.   we headed for better restaurant options in terminal 3. There a volunteer got into a discussion about curling, which he had actually done. Then he told us the restaurant s on terminal 4 were the only ones before security.  After having a BBQ brisket and a creative salad, we sailed through security.  After arriving in Chicago about 6 AM, we got a couple of McMuffins, then boarded the flight to Aruba.  We were in economy but there was no one in the window seat. Great!

The process of getting through passport control in Aruba had a hiccup.  It wouldn't read  Joan's passport.  The attendant had her try the next machine while John successfully used the one that didn't like her.  Joan's passport worked on the second machine.  Apparently this is not unusual with Canadian passports.  We got cab driven by a nice young lady who gave us some tips on local driving rules in case we rent a car.  No turns on red lights, rules for roundabouts, and license plates for rental cars start with V, so expect the unusual .

The apartment is really nice.  The cleaner was just leaving when we arrived but she showed us where the lockbox was so we could get the keys for unit K (1 of 7).  We met Joanne the manager's Dad.  He helped us out with  a few things, including the location of a nearby store.  The DoIt Center had most of the basics we needed. 

We got to sleep about 7 and slept until 5.

Sunday morning after eating oatmeal, we were still hungry so we checked out restaurants in the area.  We saw Diana's Pancake Place.  Only about 3 km away in the Palm Beach hotel area.  By the time we got there we were a bit warm.  There was a short lineup which we were able to skip by volunteering to sit at the bar.  A couple of iced coffees refreshed us quickly.  We enjoyed an apple cinnamon  and a pineapple bacon pancake.  From there we went across through a hotel to the beach, took off our shoes and walked south along the beach.  Beautiful water, sand and lots of people enjoying the sun.

 After walking past quite a few hotels we stopped at a concierge to get a map to figure out where to start heading back to the apartment.  We came out on the main road at Super Food on Bubali Road.  We picked up a few things we missed yesterday.    With a couple of bags we headed for what John thought was the next crossroad to the apartment.  After walking along it for about 3 km we got to the CIBC First Caribbean Bank.  Next to it was a Baskin Robbins / Dunkin Donuts.  We had a couple of milkshakes and confirmed we needed to head north a bit.  This turned out to be back to Bubali Road by the DiIt Center, so we had gone about 15 minutes too far south.  People were surprised we were walking.  One even stopped to offer us a ride.

After our long walk on Sunday, we spent Monday hanging around the apartment enjoying the sun and the pool.

Pool area

Troupial

Tuesday we headed back to the hotel strip along the beach.  Our first stop was the windmill.  Then we checked with Avis how much a 3 day car rental would be.   From there we walked to the Palm Beach Plaza Mall.  Not much was open at 10:00.  We started to look for iced coffee.  We didn't see anything at the Holiday Inn except some people with Dunkin Donuts iced coffee.  Before we headed there Joan bought a beach cover-up.  On the way for coffee we came upon Dushi (sweetheart in the native dialect) Bagels and Burgers.  A better class of place to relax for a few minutes and enjoy a cold coffee.

In the afternoon, we booked the 'ultimate island tour' for Thursday.   They only pick up at hotels, so will pick us up at 7:45 at the Caribbean Palms about a 20 minute walk from here.

Wednesday we walked to the hotel to time it and make sure we could find it.  Then we went for more groceries, and back to apartment to take advantage of the pool.

We set the phone to wake us up at 6 am on Thursday to make sure we had plenty of time to catch our tour.  They picked us up and took us to the ABC-Tours office.  There we signed waivers and made our selections for lunch.  Then they loaded us into 3 trucks.

Each one had seating along the sides in the back for 8 people.  Since they only had 2 staff to drive, they found a couple of volunteers to drive the other  truck.  We were lucky to be in truck with the volunteer driver since there were only 5  of us in the back.  The other 3 were from Windsor.

Aruba is 19 miles long north to south and 6 miles across.  The tour goes from the north tip to the south end in 9 hours.
Our first stop was the California Lighthouse, named for a ship that wrecked near it.

Then we stopped at the Alto Vista church, built by the Spanish.

Then we left paved roads behind on our way to the Natural Bridge.  A lot of the volcanic base of the island is covered by coral structures.  This bridge is the second largest of 8. The largest, which was many times larger collapsed exactly one year after huge waves from a passing hurricane pounded it.

Then we stopped at the ruins of the Bushiribana Gold Mill. It was built in 1872 to crush quartz to free the veins of gold.  The gold was then extracted using mercury.   It wasn't until the 1890's that the use of cyanide made the process profitable.  The official report was that 300 pounds of gold where taken, but it is thought that it may have produced twice as much.

From there we went back to tour offices to enjoy our lunches on their patio.

After the break we headed back to the west side of the island to Arikok NP.  The tour leader told our driver to keep the truck in first gear due to the grades and roughness of the road.  We headed to the Natural Pool.  We parked and walked down to the pool.  It is sheltered from the surf created by the Trade Winds that always blow from the northeast here.  There are can be strong waves if the surf is high. Today it was just on the edge of being safe, so only a few people went in.

From there we headed to Quadrirki Cave.  It is a very nice limestone cave.  There are 5 ' rooms' in the cave.  Only the first two are open to the public to protect the bats.  We did see a bat fly through.   The guide told us a story about an native girl who would meet a boy from another tribe, which was taboo.  The tribe blocked them in the cave.

Our next stop was a beach just south of the park.  It had a steep beach, and lots of surf.


Our last stop was Baby Beach.  We spent an hour here and did some swimming.

Then we raced back to the cruise ships since the passengers on the tour had to be back by 5:30.  We were slowed down a while by heavy traffic in Oranjestad.   We were surprised that they would pick a full day tour.  We were a few minutes late, but hopefully their gangplanks were still open. We then headed back to the tour office transferred to a bus to be taken back to our pick-up points. Luckily they dropped us off at our corner, saving us a 1 mi!e walk to the apartment.