Aruba a Great Little Island







This is a really relaxing little laid-back island. The beaches are great and it is so much more developed than it used to be.



I can afford to eat in Aruba now unlike back in the 90s. It is busy but not too busy and it is easy to drive around. We took a little drive up to the National Park called Arikok. It is 5 USD per adult to get in. You can drive up to the highest hill in Arikok and get a great view of the whole island.



The landscape is very different with huge cacti and plants that are not commonly seen in the Caribbean.




We then drove back down and back up the other side to see caves and the Atlantic side. The caves were cool to explore and a bit scary because I can’t see in the dark, not yet any way.





We also explored a little Atlantic Beach where there were turtle eggs and a dangerous undertow so it was not a swimming beach but just the same it was quite beautiful.




We drove on to see more landscape and came across some wild donkeys about 10 of them and two were babies.


The one little guy was so frisky and he was running around and kicking up a storm. He was so fast that we could not get him on camera as he was running around the car and his Mom.






We watched these guys for a while and two came up to the car and barely let us touch their noses. I wish that we would have had some carrots with us to feed them. Maybe the babies would have come up, they were so adorably cute.

We also saw wild goats in the hills as well. We then moved on and saw the wind turbines. Aruba has 10-12 of these to generate power. This is something that I wish Saskatoon would get off the pot and invest in wind power sooner rather than later. We eventually found Baby Beach which is a nice shallow little beach on the Atlantic side which is protected by a reef and rocks. Looking at Baby beach is very pretty from one side but if you turn to the West then you see the huge oil refinery and it is not so pretty anymore. We waded our feet in the clean water and bought a drink and let Dax play for a bit in the sand and water. It was getting close to sundown and we were at the exact opposite end of the island from the Marriott where we are staying so we left. It took about 20 minutes to get back to the resort.



The weather has been really nice, hot but with many clouds to cool you off and the ever present trade winds of Aruba. The Caribbean is very warm here being so close to South America and the equator. Dax and I have been noticing many colourful birds that have very pretty voices. There is always an iguana or lizard to watch as well, they are now protected on this island. We are off to St. Kitt’s tomorrow and hope that it is as pretty as Aruba. You can even buy coconut flavoured M & M chocolates here in the tropics with little white palm trees, they are umh umh good, too good.





Aruba

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