ARUBA BABY!!11!

insert----I have been meaning to post this for a while, I just never remember to when I have ye 'ole laptop on.  Well, heres Aruba.

Yes, the last of the ‘ABC’ islands for me to visit.  I find it kind of ironic that I saved the most well known of them for last.  ABC = Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, all part of the Dutch Antilles. 

 

BEST TRIP EVAR?

 

Well, being that I went with Karl, Marshall and Zach (Marshall’s buddy) I couldn’t help but have had a great time, not even mentioning that Aruba is amazing.  This has been the most fun I’ve had in ages.  To start with, the 2^nd day on the island, we booked a something called ABC Jeep safari.  If anyone reading this goes to Aruba DO THIS.  It was 80 bucks for 8-9 hours of solid fun.  I think my favorite part is that I got to drive one of the Jeeps (actually a tank of a land rover defender) in some pretty amazing off-roading conditions.  We started out by stopping by the northern most point on the island (by the way, Aruba is only 9x19 miles) at a ‘California Style’ lighthouse.  Very splendid view as we were really high up.  Afterwards we drove through a really nice housing area, to show off some of the bigger houses on the island.  One of the houses had a ‘pool house’ that was its own plot and address.

We dropped by a quaint church that was nearly 300 years old or something, which I really could care less about except that we had to go off-roading to get there.  From there we rambled down the dirt roads to a ‘fort’ which was actually a gold refinery built like a fort so that pirates would think twice before coming near it.  It was really cool, built right into the side of a huge rock formation.

After we had our fun throwing rocks, we went to something called the ‘natural pool.’  That was far from the most interesting thing, except for the fact that we had to climb over a mountain with the truck to get there.  These land rovers are big, heavy, turbo diesels that have as much torque as a medium sized semi-truck (it feels at least) And an extremely heavy frame, lowering the center of gravity substantially.  I’m even sure as of this recounting that driving that thing over huge rocks and dizzying heights was my favorite part of the whole tour. 

We got to the natural pool, me right behind the lead car with the tour guide in it, and our third truck way back still climbing down the side of the mountain.  There were about 20 trucks all lined up outside of the pool, and naturally even more people in this pool with snorkels.  I was less than impressed with it, though my feelings toward it would probably have been much more positive had there been enough room to swim in it without someone kicking you in the face.  I did find a cool eel though.  We climbed up some even steeper rocks on the way back out of the place, putting a huge smile on my already smiling face.

We ate lunch at an ostrich farm.  Yeah, weird…I know. After avoiding the pork ribs and chowing down on some chicken legs, we got to feed some ostriches out of our hands. The guide that walked us through the farm told us all about how good they are to eat or something, even if their meat is supremely expensive.  I’m not sure if ostrich is clean.  Anyhow that was pretty fun and interesting.  Did you know that an ostrich can sustain 45 miles an hour for an hour? Also, their feet reminded me of a velociraptor.

Caves have always been very fascinating to me, and what awesome do-everything-in-the-world tour wouldn’t be complete without going into a cave?  Got some shots of bats flying and such, and saw some 1000 year old cave paintings.  Very neat.

We went from there to the Natural Bridge, which actually fell in 2005, but they had a smaller ‘spare’ off to the side that was an equally impressive bit of geology.  Sadly, the whole area was full of human trash piled about.  Kinda makes me mad that anyone would come to such a beautiful place only to throw their corndog wrapper in the sea. 

The last stop of the day was someplace called Baby Beach. It was a small protected cove with lots of people swimming and sunning.  They had some good hamburgers and beers there too.  What a day!

 

At night out on the beach we saw the aftermath of something I have wanted to see in person for a very long while.  A leatherback hatching!  Baby leatherbacks climbed out of the sand, and flap flapped their way to the ocean and we were about 3 minutes late. Luckily, one straggler was just emerging when I arrived and I got to watch him flap flap all the way down the beach. I know I’m not going to sound too manly saying this but….SO CUTE.  Ok, now that that is over with….

 

Zach and I were both already certified divers, and we couldn’t bully Karl or Marshall to get certified while they were down here.  This led to it being only me and Zach having one of the coolest dives ever! I had thought that you had to be in the ‘advanced’ certified category to dive wrecks, but I guess they don’t care much in Aruba.  We went to go see the ship called the Jane Sea.  It was a freighter that was used by drug smugglers to haul their shipments around the Caribbean, and was subsequently caught and seized.  They sank it out in 65’ to 100’ waters (it was on an incline, and the ship itself was 200’ long)

I have to say that I felt more like a little boy floating there, 90 feet under water looking at this huge vessel in all its sunken glory than I have in 10 years.  My eyes were wide with surprise and awe as we swam through a common area, a kitchen, and bunking quarters.  There was just something about being there, underwater, watching the whole ship alive with coral and fish swimming all about (and me there personally able to interact with it!) that was hugely amazing to me.  It was probably only my 5^th dive ever, but I have a feeling that I’ll remember this one as my favorite for a long, long time.

The second dive was a ‘lazy man’s dive’ i.e. a drift dive.  You go with the current.  We got to see all shapes, sizes and manners of fish, coral, and everything in between.  I was hoping that the small cut I received from maneuvering through the tight quarters of the Jane Sea would attract a shark or two, but no such luck.  I saw a cool yellow spotted moray eel, and Zach found a confusingly bright cobalt colored shrimp hanging out on the top of a coral outcropping.  Parrot fish, sergeant majors, grouper, and barracuda all about.  It was a great day, made all the better that it was a personal, cheap, fun guy that took us and only one other couple.

 

A few days on the beach, hanging out with some girls that Zach met filled some of the week as well, we actually came to be good friends with Jen, Katie and Sara.  They were from Connecticut or something.  They were kinda our ‘Aruba Buddies’ for the trip.  We went out to a big dinner with them one night, and then on to the famous senior frog’s in downtown.  We had a lot of fun cooking for them and them for us. 

 

Friday, we tried our foot at wind surfing!  I can now wind surf on a cursory level.  Learning the basics was actually easier than I anticipated, (I was thinking this would be like learning to snowboard, something that I did not have an easy time with)  and maybe that’s why I was probably the one who liked it most. (Gotta set those sights low!) Right after wind surfing, we went to something called Jolly Pirates.  It was a cruise on a Brazilian two-masted schooner with an open bar for two hours.  Definitely recommended.  This was a ton of fun.  We motored out of the port and then put the sails out and went up the coast.  Sailing has always been one of my interests, but I’ve never really acted on it.  I think this trip will put a bit of a fire under me to go out and learn to sail on a personal level.  The best part of the whole thing was the rope swing.  You get to jump from the prow of the ship out into the crystal cleat Arubian waters.  We did that for about 30-45 minutes, then put the sails out and sailed back to the harbor.  We watched most of the amazing sunset that day from the trapeze on the prow of the ship.

 

That’s most of the high points of the trip, and I give a big thumbs up to Aruba.  Take at least a week.