mlchad147
- Dec 17, 2023
- 3 min read

December 16, 2023–Aruba

The island of Aruba lies just 18 miles off the coast of Venezuela, which is about as close as I care to get. Once part of the Netherlands Antilles and now officially known as the Country of Aruba, Aruba is one of four autonomous countries that make up the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Can you name the other three? And see how I’m sneaking educational stuff into the blog?

Enough of that. Time to talk about our day, which was very full. We docked in Oranjestad, the capital, two hours earlier than expected, and with no morning excursion scheduled we had plenty of time to do our own unofficial walking tour of the downtown area. Oranjestad is famous for its Dutch Colonial Revival architecture, and we did find a few attractive buildings done in that style, but they are the exception, not the rule. Much of the downtown is aimed squarely at the tourist trade, with souvenir shops, jewelry stores and the like within easy walking distance of the cruise terminal. Their trolleys are gorgeous, and I would have enjoyed riding on one if we’d had a little more time, but we needed to get back to grab some lunch and prepare for our afternoon excursion, which was scheduled to last four hours, but ended up running considerably longer than that.

Promptly at 1:30 around 25 of us boarded a bus and were driven to a beach bar, where we climbed onto a small boat for a fifteen minute ride out into the Caribbean, there to transfer to a slightly larger boat that had windows below the waterline. This second boat maneuvered us over the wreck of a 400 foot long freighter that was scuttled by its German crew during World War Two to prevent it from falling into Allied hands. The wreck itself was interesting, but it also created an artificial reef, and we saw lots of fish and a sea turtle. Unfortunately, our captain either wasn’t paying attention,misjudged the dark clouds rolling in, or simply didn’t care about them, because after transferring back to the first boat and heading back to shore we were hit by a cloudburst well before we reached the beach bar. I’m sure we were never in any danger, but the situation was compounded when our bus driver tried to bring the bus down a narrow alley to get closer to the bar, where we were huddled under the awning, waiting out a truly impressive rainstorm. Of course he couldn’t turn around, got stuck, and by the time we made it to the bus and the driver managed to safely back out of the alley, we were more than an hour behind schedule.

Fortunately, the rest of the excursion went well. The rain had pretty much stopped by the time we reached our second destination, a small natural bridge being carved along the shore by the ocean waves. There had been a much larger natural bridge just yards away, but it collapsed several years ago, leaving quite an impressive pile of rubble behind. Too bad, I would like to have seen it.

Next it was on to a large rock formation that we climbed, at one point crawling through a narrow gap in the boulders, until we reached the top, where we were treated to a panoramic view of the island. I would like to have stayed a little longer, but we had one more stop to make, and as I said, we were behind schedule.

Our final destination was an old lighthouse, no longer in use, on the northeastern tip of the island. The lighthouse itself was neat, but the view of the sunset over the Caribbean from there stole the show. I couldn’t have been happier that our lengthy delay had put us at the lighthouse at sunset, and I think I got a couple nice photos.

Back at the ship we were treated to an Aruban dance performance, and it was absolutely delightful. If I had to describe Aruban dance in a single adjective, I would call it exuberant. It reinforces Aruba’s motto: One Happy Island.

As I said, a full day, but all in all a very good one. I enjoyed our day in Aruba and can’t wait to see Curaçao (the second of the four countries that make up the Kingdom of the Netherlands) tomorrow.