Forward: I can’t help the fact that every time I hear or say “Aruba”, my mind starts singing The Beach Boys. Kokomo is just too catchy a tune, and the first word of the song is “Aruba”. All of this basically means that was the theme song for the September trip to Aruba that I made with my BBE, Amanda.
Aruba marks the 5th new country that I’ve been to this year, and 6th foreign country I’ve stepped foot in in 2023, so it’s been quite a year! The new ones being the Netherlands, Hungary, Austria, and Czech Republic, with Canada being a repeat (though I was literally only there outside the cruise port/airport for like an hour). But anyways…Aruba.
The idea for Aruba began with me qualifying for the Southwest Companion Pass due to opening a Southwest credit card with a huge bonus in late 2021. Then I had to make sure I actually made use of that pass, so why not offer one of my best friends from college the chance to join me on what would surely be a magical journey to somewhere Southwest flew. We nixed Mexico due to safety reasons, passed on places that seemed to only have “beach” or “all-inclusive resort” as things to do, realized that Costa Rica would require more than the 5ish days we had to really do it justice, and Puerto Rico has a bad recent history of hurricanes in September. All of that means we ended up with Aruba (Jamaica ooo I wanna take ya…). And surprisingly, we found Aruba to be fairly cheap if you looked in the right places.
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| Storms are a coming, while waiting for people to get on in Denver |
My adventure began with a flight up to Chicago, where I was to meet up with Amanda. That journey was loads of fun (she said sarcastically). The start of my journey was fine, but the flight from Denver to Chicago was delayed, and then people were slow getting on, and then we got stuck on the runway as a severe thunderstorm came through just as we were next in line to take-off. When the storm finally calmed down, the winds had shifted enough that we had to taxi to a new runway to take off. Eventually I would make it to my hotel in Chicago…just like an hour and a half after I was originally supposed to arrive.
Amanda and I crashed at the hotel for like a whole 4 hours before we had to be up to catch the shuttle to the airport. Who planned for a 5:25 am departure time? What an idiot? Oh yeah, that was me. Remind me to not do that again. From Chicago we flew to Orlando before hopping the flight to Aruba, on which the average age was probably something like 55.
Aruba is an unusual Caribbean island. It isn’t a tropical island. It is a desert island. You see more cactus and dirt than trees. It is also hot and very consistent. When I looked at the temperature a week before we left it said high of 92* and low of 84* every single day. I wondered if there was an error with their forecasting system. Turns out there wasn’t. Every day is just hot, dry, and windy. It averages only 17” of rain a year and average monthly highs range from 86.5* to 91.8*.
After arriving in Aruba, I can tell you I continued a personal tradition by heading the wrong direction out of the airport. Amanda was thrilled for a repeat of New York 2011. I seem to often get turned around leaving airports, subway stations, train stations, etc. Turns out that I shouldn’t have even been worrying about what direction to go. We had a rental car to pick up, but the company wasn’t located at the airport. It looked like they were located right across the street which wasn’t going to be a bad walk, but it was. It was hot and farther than it seemed on the map. And when we got to the car rental company, we found out that even though there was no sign for a shuttle, they did indeed have a shuttle. In fact, they had someone there to pick us up with a sign and we didn’t notice. My bad.
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| Pearl Aruba Condos |
Once we got the car, we headed to our hotel which was called the Aruba Pearl Condos. Seriously, if you choose to go to Aruba, stay there. It was like a block from the beach, so no worrying about parking. And the beach in that area was almost empty (though when they finish building the new resort next door, I’m sure it will get a lot more crowded). It had a kitchenette in it. There was a nice pool area, with grills. There were keypads on the doors so you didn’t have to worry about where to stuff your key when you went to the beach. It was also a great price! Definitely would recommend.
After getting checked in, we went to the grocery store to get some food for the next few days. We had decided our plan would be to eat our own food once a day, and then eat out once a day. With the grocery journey complete, we ate supper (Kraft mac and cheese, very classy) and then headed down to relax with our feet in the pool for a little while before heading to bed very early.
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| Eagle Beach |
Over the next couple of days on the island we did a variety of things. We tended to stick to the plan of keeping busy in the mornings and early afternoon, and then heading to the beach later in the afternoon. When we went to the beach it was to Eagle Beach right near our hotel. I am curious what summer is like there. How busy that beach is because we could have planted ourselves about anywhere we wanted. The water was the perfect temperature and a nice pretty color. The sand was about the same color as my very pale legs and not rocky at all. If you want a nice beach, Eagle Beach definitely meets the bill.
Here are our non-beach adventures:
Arikok National Park covers probably about 25% of Aruba. There are parts of the park that are only accessible by 4x4, which we did not have. That meant we had to stick to certain roads. We took Route 7 through the park, stopping a few times for pictures before heading down a dirt road (accessible to non-4x4 vehicles) towards Dos Playa. I know it might be shocking to hear, but there are 2 beaches at Dos Playa (not Playas, though). From there we attempted to take the coastal hiking trail, but before long thought, “hmm…we don’t seem to be very near the water anymore.” Turns out we were on another trail. After quick deliberation that basically went, “it’s hot and I don’t want to spend all day hiking in this, let’s just go to the next place,” we got back in the car and made a quick photo stop at some sand dunes before heading to the caves and some ruins. Plantage Prins are some ruins of what was once a plantation home for coconuts. There are some buildings which looked like they were probably fairly nice once upon a time, but have been falling apart for some time. There were two caves to visit: Fontein and Quadarikiri Cave. You couldn’t go very far into them, but Quadarikiri Cave did have some neat natural skylights in it. There also were goats.
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| Arikok National Park |
- Donkey Sanctuary Aruba is a unique place for sure. Once upon a time donkeys were widely used across Aruba, but as time moved on they became less frequently used. The Donkey Sanctuary is a place where you can make a donation and feed and pet/hug the donkeys. A 3-legged donkey named Kamino, who hobbled over to us as was like, “it is your job to pet me, so do it." Every time you stopped he would hobble closer and how could you not pet him a little bit more. There was a sign there that said he had been hit by a car and that resulted in the loss of his leg. They had food for the donkeys which you could purchase so we each fed the donkeys (and some peacocks and chickens). It was definitely a unique experience and I feel like if you’re ever in Aruba, it is worth a journey to the sanctuary for an hour or so.
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| Feeding the Donkeys at the Donkey Sanctuary |
Royal Aloe Aruba is an aloe farm located on the west side of the island that grows aloe and then produces all sorts of product from it. We took a short tour where our guide explained the different parts of the aloe plant. The spiny looking leaves have a gel interior, surrounded by a latex covering which can be toxic to your skin. Leaves are basically fileted like a fish so you can get to the gelatinous inside. They then use the latex in laxative products and the gel in a variety of external products. I was surprised by how many different products can be made from aloe. Their little factory there can make them all and then distribute them around the world.
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| Fileting an aloe leaf. |
The Ayo Rock Formations seem to be a rather odd pile of rocks. Not like rocks that people moved there, but giant boulders sort of piled on top of each other in a small area. It looked like they had just finished creating a new pathway around the boulders. We followed the path around before thinking we had hit a dead end and turned around. Turned out we just didn’t look in the correct spot for the path to continue because we hit the same location coming from the other direction. There were also some petroglyphs left by the Arawak people centuries ago. And a goat, but just one.
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| Ayo Rock Formation |
Natural Bridge is a place where there was a naturally formed bridge created by the waves hitting the rock. The large bridge collapsed in 2005, but there is still a smaller natural bridge that hasn’t yet collapsed. Some water leaks in under the old collapsed bridge and we did see a few small crabs crabbing in the pool left behind.
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| The smaller (and still standing) natural bridge. |
Bushiribana is the ruins of an old gold smelter on the island. It is built into the rocks and of rock, which is pretty neat. The kind of funny thing is they spent the time building this place and then it only ran for 10 years because it wasn’t very economical. It is right near Natural Bridge so the two go hand-in-hand.
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| Bushiribana Ruins |
The California Lighthouse was of course a place we had to visit, because who can resist a lighthouse? Though we did both agree that once you’ve been up one lighthouse, you don’t really need to go up another. This one is located up on the northwest tip of the island. The lighthouse is named for a ship that sank off the coast near where the lighthouse stands, prior to the lighthouse being built.
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| California Lighthouse |
On our last full day in Aruba we went snorkeling. We went out at Boca Catalina for about an hour. We saw quite a few fish. No coral in the area though. We tried two other places which were said to have the best snorkeling on the island, but we didn’t think we were quite at the right location for one, and the other place had too strong a surf to snorkel in. We tried, but quickly gave up. And really that covers the trip. It was a good time.
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