Category: Aruba

Welcome back, dear readers. When we left off, Jared and I had spent three days on Aruba, the One Happy Island, trying to find our equilibrium and make our vacation into the Kokomo mirage. Unfortunately, we were met with disappointment more often than success, and were now hoping that our remaining 4 days on the island would be Instagram-worthy tropical paradise perfection.

Day T-4: We lazed around the beach, swimming in the ocean and reading in beach chairs. The club from which we got the chairs was closed, as we’d discovered on our first dinner foray. At first, we thought the restaurant was closed for the low season, which we somewhat lamented because drinks would have been great. After some questions to the locals, however, it turned out that the restaurant had been doing something shady (we never found out exactly what) and the government was pissed off enough to fill their septic tank with sand. In Aruba, restaurants are required to have a bathroom, and filling the septic tank was the government’s way of making that impossible.  During the week we were there, the club plopped one blue and one pink port-o-let into the blazing sun nearby and started serving beer, but they still hadn’t figured out how to remove the sand from the septic tank. Moral of the story: don’t piss off the Aruban government!

Having exhausted the (ISLAND EXPENSIVE) restaurants within walking distance, we decided to try out a well-reviewed Surinamese place for dinner. It required taking a $12 taxi to town (as we didn’t want to melt), but it turned out to be a great choice because it was also adjacent to a pharmacy that had hydrocortisone cream and aloe. We’d managed to get some rash and pretty bad sunburn despite our efforts to the contrary, and were in dire need of both products. After spending quite a bit of money on two tubes of medicine, we headed to the Surinamese diner. We loved everything except the almond drink, and will definitely be looking for Surinamese restaurants in the future. It was also very cheap compared to everything else, which was a definite bonus as our credit card was starting to get a little melty too.

After dinner, we decided to walk to a nearby grocery store in hopes of finding more Tuareg cookies to bring back to the US. The store, unfortunately, didn’t have any, but they did have something that I initially thought was an entire aisle of dishwasher tablets. They turned out to be some kind of Aruban Peeps, which look just as disgusting as the Peeps in the US, but thank goodness they’re gluten free because that makes all the difference when you want disgusting candy that looks like dishwasher detergent tablets.

Disappointed by the lack of Tuaregs and getting tired, it was time to catch a cab to the hotel. It was still hot and we were full from dinner, so we didn’t really want to walk the 20 minutes back. We decided to head in that general direction while we looked for a taxi, only to find out that once again we were in a residential area with no tourist infrastructure, including no freaking taxis. We ended up walking all the way to our hotel, cursing the heat and all the water we drank. We saw exactly one taxi the whole walk back, and it didn’t stop when we flagged it, leaving us almost running by the end of our trek because there aren’t public restrooms in the residential areas of Oranjestad either.

During this hell march, we saw a sign for Fookiu Vodka which I felt accurately captured the spirit of the moment:

The next morning (Day T-3) we were up bright and early for a tour of the rugged north shore. Our ride showed up, and the driver informed us we could sit in the front, middle, or back of the jacked-up Range Rover for “baby bumps, medium bumps, or added bumps.” Being old and grouchy, we chose the front. I’m glad we did, because our driver was running late and drove like a madman trying to make up time. Or so we thought, until we met up with the other vehicles in our group and went off-road. It turns out that our driver was actually quite tame in comparison to those of the other two Range Rovers.

Most of the tour fell into the category of “drive-by with a brief tap on the brakes to shout some info at us,” but we did stop a couple of times. The first was at a church on top of a hill. I can’t remember what was special about it (because I don’t care) but we did get a nice picture with some cacti. The second stop was at Natural Bridge, a geologic formation that used to be a sea arch, but it collapsed in 2006. I’m not quite sure why it still qualifies as a tourist attraction, but there’s a gift shop and restaurant so I guess it’s a required economic stop, even though Baby Natural Bridge (where the driver hesitated for a moment) was much more beautiful and, more importantly, still standing.

Our final stop was Natural Pool (Conchi), the supposed highlight of the tour. It was a very rough journey in our super-Rover, so bumpy that one of our fellow tourist’s cell phone bounced out of his pocket and into the road. (Though amazingly, once he realized it was gone, he was able to find it on the side of the road later.) Once at Natural Pool, we loped down the rock stairs for our close encounter with the north coast and its rough seas.

We were lucky that the waves were small that day. Even so, the sharp, moss-covered rocks that make up the approach to the pool were treacherous. Jared opted to stay on land, but I felt obligated to get a close look at this geologic marvel. After getting in and somehow managing to get back out of this tiny, dirty, crowded bowl, I can say—I should’ve skipped it. I suppose it’s pretty from above, and some people do jump off the rocks, but overall there was nothing really special about it. Had it been a day with high waves, I don’t think I could have gotten in and out without being lifted by a crane or seriously injured.

We climbed back up the stairs for the trip home. The thing that made the whole day worthwhile was that we passed the restaurant near our hotel that had been closed earlier in the week, and it was open. We immediately decided to walk over and try it. The food was excellent, though I didn’t care for the funchi, a local delicacy of fried something similar to polenta. The dessert was even better than the dinner, a flan and a chocolate mousse cake that were both spectacular.

Jared and I don’t usually stay in all-inclusive resorts. They tend to be expensive, and they’re an obstacle to meeting people and getting a feel for the local culture. The only bad thing about not staying at an all-inclusive is that we didn’t have unlimited drinks 24 hours per day, which is a little sad during a beach vacation. While we enjoyed sitting on our beach chairs by our hotel, we wanted at least one day of unlimited drinks, so we booked a day on De Palm Island (Day T-2), a little barrier island off the south coast. It’s all inclusive, includes snorkeling and banana boats, and to compete with nearby Renaissance Island, it has a few desultory flamingos. The bus picks you up, takes you to the ferry, and you get to spend a whole day lazing around on your chair with alcohol and snorkeling.

De Palm Island is a very small place and there were a lot of people, but it was a nice experience overall. We met several people from around the US while we waited in line for drinks and lounged on our chairs. I spent lots of time snorkeling, seeing a few fish I hadn’t seen in other areas, and even caught an eel poking around the rocks. Jared found a different kind of eel close to the beach, where we watched it cruise around the rocks. We took pictures of the Chilean flamingos and listened to the caretaker explain that the crabs chasing the flamingos weren’t trying to hurt them, but rather were waiting for some nice, fresh flamingo poop to hit the beach so they could have lunch.

On our last full day on the island (Day T-1), we finally gave up and rented a car because there were several things we wanted to do that we couldn’t reach via walking. Our hotel had a rental car counter in the lobby, and it turns out that renting the car was the most cost-effective thing we did all week. We went to the butterfly farm on the west side of the island. We found a great crepe restaurant for breakfast, though we ate and left quickly because it was outdoors and the heat index at 9:00 am was already over 100°F. We went to the post office to get stamps for postcards and tried to visit the archaeological museum, which unfortunately was closed for renovations. We took pictures of the blue horse statues that were scattered around the tourist area, and most importantly, we visited five more grocery stores looking for Tuareg cookies and the local rum.

We totally scored, eventually finding 16 packs of cookies and two bottles of rum, as well as a 12 pack of Coco Rico soda for our friend Vikki. After a morning walking around in the inferno, quality time with our beach chairs was in order. Following a lazy afternoon and a beautiful sunset, we made the most of our car by returning to town for dinner at a wonderful little Italian restaurant which had outside seating. A good breeze made our last night more comfortable.

The next morning, Day T-0, it was time to pack up. We very carefully rolled all our cookies into pairs of socks to protect them on the journey, and found room in our luggage for both bottles of rum and the 12 cans of Coco Rico. Dear friends, I can say with certainty that this is the only time in my life when I have hit the 50 pound luggage limit (24.5 kilograms!!), and had the attendant put a “Heavy” tag on my suitcase.

Did we like Aruba? Mostly. We enjoyed Surfside Beach and watching the planes land over the water. We saw lots of fish while snorkeling and enjoyed seeing the very different north side of this desert island. The lack of bus transportation was disappointing for a desert island that will be hit hard by climate change, but tourists in the tourist zone can walk or take the tram in that area. We got by with walking, a few taxis, and one day of a rental car. Would we go back to Aruba?

The horror story, the haunted house, the wicked twist to the plot… That’s the Aruba airport. It took what had been an okay (but not exceptional) trip and turned it into a “never again” moment that guarantees Jared and I will avoid the One Happy Island like the plague. But that’s a story for another day…

Even more bonus snorkeling pictures

Oranjestad, Aruba – September 2022

Aruba. Jamaica. Oooh I wanna take ya…

That’s what springs to mind for most people when you say Aruba—the 1988 song “Kokomo” by the Beach Boys, eliciting dreams of umbrella drinks and coconut-scented tanning oil wafting by your nose as you lay on a perfect beach under palm trees while listening to a steel drum band. Holding hands with your lover while you walk slowly into the perfectly clear, Caribbean blue water to kiss in front of the sunset in picture-perfect fashion. The locals support and encourage this mirage, with the One Happy Island slogan festooned on everything in sight and spouted by the locals at every opportunity.

Aruba may be the perfect One Happy Island in some areas, just not where we stayed. We’d found a great deal on a hotel near the airport, and snapped it up with no more than a cursory scan of traveler reviews. We were lured by the (very) cheap price for the week, the very close proximity to Surfside Beach, the apparent array of restaurants within walking distance, and the presence of not one but two bus stops on Google maps. We reasoned that with two bus stops, a variety of nearby restaurants, and a short walk to one of the nicest beaches on the island, we’d be set for the week, spending our days lazing on the beach with drinks then catching a bus into the main part of town for cheap dinners of island delights. And thank goodness the hotel was cheap, because everything else on Aruba is ISLAND EXPENSIVE.

What is island expensive? Why would I make that kind of distinction beyond just saying that the vacation was expensive? My dear friends, if you have not spent significant time on an island in the middle of the ocean let this serve as your warning. ISLAND EXPENSIVE means whatever it is your heart desires is probably a) not located on the island, or b) costs at least 5 times more than it does on the mainland. In addition, there’s the tourist mark-up that accompanies the 5 times cost increase, meaning if you buy your heart’s desire in a store near the tourist areas, the cost is really more like 8 to 10 times more expensive than on the mainland.

This is understandable when you really think about having to put all of those things on a ship that uses lots of fuel to cross a huge water body to unload that stuff onto the island, and the fact that tourists are the main industry. Even though Jared and I know from many previous experiences about ISLAND EXPENSIVE, somehow we always manage to forget between island vacations, meaning we spent a week cringing at the cost of everything we ate, drank, or did. Seeing the cost in Aruban florins didn’t really help, because even with an exchange rate of 1.7 florins to the dollar, ISLAND EXPENSIVE is still really expensive.

Not that you need Aruban florins. Everyone we interacted with seemed to know the price of everything in dollars, and when we wanted to pay in florins, they had to pull out their phone to do the conversion. In hindsight we did not need to get florins from the ATM at the airport, but we should have brought a lot more US $1 and $5 bills. Over the last two years of sitting at home through COVID, we forgot all our travel rules and only brought twenties, except for one $10 we got at the Atlanta airport because I wanted peanut M&Ms for a snack.

But I digress. We arrived at the Aruba airport in the mid-afternoon, sailed through customs and immigration, went straight to the ATM, and were absolutely shocked at the lack of touts. It’s amazing to us that an island nation that relies on tourism for its main industry doesn’t have a hall of touts at the airport, but hats off to Aruba—nary a one grabbed us, yelled at us, blocked our way, or shoved pamphlets into our faces as we walked to the ATM and the taxi stand. I’d looked up the price of the taxi beforehand and knew it was going to be expensive, so it wasn’t unexpected when the driver charged US$18 after driving one mile from the airport to our hotel. No problem, we thought, because there were restaurants and bus stops nearby, and we wouldn’t need a taxi again until we were ready to go back to the airport.

Once we got to the hotel, it didn’t take us long to change and go out to the pool for drinks. It was very hot, so we spent the afternoon in and out of the pool while trying the resort’s stock of Venezuelan and Aruban rums. It was a nice afternoon that we thoroughly enjoyed until we were ready to head to dinner.

As I mentioned earlier, it appeared on Google maps that there were many restaurants within walking distance. We got dressed and headed out to look for a wonderful Aruban dinner to cap off our relaxing afternoon, only to realize… all of those “restaurants” were really just walk-up counters with the equivalent of hot dogs and popcorn. The focus of all of the places immediately around the hotel was definitely convenience foods and alcohol. While those things certainly have a place, they weren’t really what we wanted, so we walked toward the beach to check out some other places.

The beachside hamburger shack had small menus out that we mistook for the full menu, and not wanting fast food we passed it by. We wandered farther up the beach to two of the places that had tables in the sand, with beautiful views of the sunset to accompany the meal. One appeared closed, so we went to the other. Luckily, September is the low season, because it turns out we were at one of the most expensive restaurants on the island, one that normally requires reservations weeks in advance. But because it was the off season, we were able to get a seat on the beach and watch the sunset while enjoying an exceptional dinner and the best dessert we’d have all week. We went off to bed in a good mood, full and happy, with the intention to get up in the morning and catch the bus to the grocery store for supplies.

The next morning, we got up, got ready, and went out to try and catch a bus. We asked a couple of the staff at the hotel, only to learn to our dismay that the bus stops shown on Google maps were phantoms. Maybe they existed before the pandemic, but they definitely weren’t in use anymore. The hotel staff told us we could walk 15 minutes to a stadium farther inland to catch the bus, or walk 15 minutes down the coast to a grocery store. None too pleased, we set off into the burning heat of a clear sunny day to walk 15 minutes to the store.

It turns out that while the air temperature in Aruba tends to stay between 84-88°F year-round, the heat index can exceed 100°F. We arrived at the store completely soaked with sweat, hoping to quickly grab a few supplies and book a couple tours before hiking back. We walked around and around the tiny grocery store, looking for anything we could cobble together for breakfast and snacks, finally settling on some bread, lunchmeat, chocolate bars, and cashews, plus some soft drinks, 5 liters of water, and sports drinks to help avoid heatstroke. We decided to make one more pass to augment our snack stack, and there they were… miracle of miracles, 5 packs of Tuareg cookies peeking out like Captain Cook’s buried treasure.

We gasped and rejoiced, forgetting the heat and the missing bus, and grabbed all 5 packages to eat during the week. This was only the third time in all of our travels that we’d located these delicious coconut snacks, and with no immediate plans to return to Chile or Guatemala, we were ecstatic with our Tuareg treasure.

Leaving the store, we quickly walked up to the Renaissance Hotel to book a couple of excursions for the week. Giving in to the fact that we were carrying almost 10 liters of fluid and were about to melt, we grabbed a US$10 taxi back to our hotel where we found that the heat had melted our chocolate. Still starry-eyed about our Tuaregs, we put the chocolate in the fridge and went to the beach to cool off in the water. After a lazy afternoon on the beach, we were once more ready for dinner and hoping for a cheaper option than the beachfront restaurants.

We’d already established that the shacks facing our hotel didn’t really have dinner food, so we located a promising restaurant on Google maps farther inland and headed out… Only to arrive at the restaurant and find it was closed, even though the hours on the door indicated it should be open. Grumbling, hot, and annoyed, we walked farther inland toward what Google said was a sushi restaurant.

The farther we walked, the more we realized we were in a very residential area. There was the occasional car on the street as people came home from work, but mostly it was dark and deserted. After passing a couple more restaurants that were closed, we happened upon a hamburger stand and, not willing to risk additional walking in the heat to find out if the sushi restaurant was open, we decided hamburgers were a great idea. We also got some of the local soft drinks, in my case a Tropical Cherry, that were really pretty good. Yet another delicious drink that Coca-Cola serves the rest of the world while punishing the US with fart-flavored tonic water and Dr. Pepper.

We woke the next morning and quickly got ready for a snorkeling tour we’d booked to Baby Beach and Mangel Alto. It turned out that we were the only ones on the tour, and we had a great morning looking at many kinds of fish we hadn’t previously seen. The currents in both locations were a little tougher than we’re used to, but our guide was wonderful and had a very keen eye for wildlife. He found trumpet fish, an octopus, and an eel among other things, pointing them out so we could take pictures. After a wonderful time on our tour, we headed over to the beach shack for lunch and were pleasantly surprised to find they had an extensive menu that included delicious chicken satay. We spent the rest of the afternoon on our lounge chairs with the occasional dip into the water to cool off, since the heat index remained stubbornly over 100°F. We also quickly realized that the beach was at the end of the airport runway, and we could watch the planes land over the water (which was rather entertaining and resulted in the occasional whiff of jet fuel on the breeze).

After a pleasant morning and afternoon, we headed to the only overwater restaurant on the island, which was supposed to have food on par with the beach restaurant where we ate our first night. Alas, the overwater restaurant was somewhat mediocre in both food and service, while somehow still costing the equivalent of a small country’s annual GDP. Somewhat disappointed, we schlepped back to the hotel and collapsed in the AC while grumbling about the drag racing on the road outside our room and the thumpy club music next door. Almost halfway through our trip, we were beginning to realize that even though we love tropical beaches with umbrella drinks and snorkeling, we weren’t meshing well with the One Happy Island.

With 4 more days on the island, would we be able to find our way and create the perfect mirage invoked by the Beach Boys? Join us in our next installment of The Escape Hatch to find out!

Bonus snorkeling pictures

We saw a lot of sea life on our snorkeling trip. Here are a few of the denizens of the deep (well actually shallow) that we encountered.