Well, our honeymoon came to an end, we got home about 1 am this morning and woke up to reality! It is difficult not walking the beach drinking coffee this morning! We went to Aruba for a week which was such a beautiful place wish we could move there! Not sure our skin would appreciate being so close to the equator- Aruba is 19.6 miles long and 6 miles wide. Their primary language is Dutch, thankfully most everyone also spoke english! We did not do any research so it was a learning experience! Suprisingly, we were part of the very few who were from the West Coast. We met alot of fun people, mostly from the east coast and alot of visitors from other countries like Venezuela and Europe, so the diversity was extreme and made it very interesting! The island is known for it's safety, it is not affected too durastically by weather, and the natives are very friendly, unless they are driving ofcourse then it feels like New York. We did not know what any road signs meant, so we got honked at for going down one ways, not pinning it as soon as the light turned green, and not driving at top speeds thru residential roads- stop signs, well, they dont exist, street names and signs, they are few and far between, in dutch and not printed on the map! For a small island, we managed to get lost quite a bit which only provided us an opportunity to expereince more inland :)
We went on a jeep safari one of the days we were there. It was a riot! We were lucky and had the most fun jeep group out of the four! We had a couple from New York driving, yes, the Arubians took our money then asked which customer wanted to drive lol, at least they drove the leading jeep! We made sure to get our money's worth by four wheeling it hard and hitting every standing water puddle on the ride.
We went to the California light house which was really cool. The lighthouse is named for the U.S ship - the California - which sunk about two years previous to its construction in 1910.
The Alto Vista Chapel also went down in our books! The chapel was built in 1952 on the site of the original, and first, Catholic church built in Aruba in 1750 by a Spanish missionary, Domingo Antonio Silvestre. The bright yellow chapel is reached by a winding road lined with white crosses marking the stations of the cross. It is a special place for peace and contemplation, surrounded by the Aruban countryside.
Aruba has a couple of historic natrual bridges. The first natural bridge, was one of Aruba's most popular attractions. The bridge was a formation of coral limestone cut out by years of pounding surf, and was one of the largest of these types of spans in the world. This bridge collapsed in Sept 2 of 05', but we were fortunate enough to see two smaller natural bridge formations. This was really cool to see the water smash against the rocks, beleive it or not, the beach we went to most of the time was so calm, like a lake!
The collapsed bridge
On top of one of the two smaller natural bridges
We then went to the Bushiribana Gold Mine Ruins. "Regarding the ruins’ history, Alonso de Ojeda was a Spanish explorer who made his way to this remote corner of the Caribbean and laid claim to the territory for Queen Isabella. According to tradition, he christened the place “Oro Hubo”, which means that there was gold there. The Spanish seemed to believe that the climate was too arid for cultivation, and they found little evidence of the infamous supply of “gold”. Over the course of 150 years, Aruba became a hideaway for pirates and buccaneers. Bushiribana is the name of the ruins of an old pirate castle that still stands (barely) today. The year 1824 was when they finally discovered gold near Bushiribana. In 1872, the Aruba Island Gold Mining Company built a large smelting works at Bushiribana, for gold that was being mined at Seroe Plat."
Not sure why we went to the Ostrich farm, but we did. These creatures run 45 mph, and are probably the weirdest looking things on the planet!
We went snorkeling in the natural pool, which is a unique formation of rock, volcanic stone circles a small depression, creating a tranquil pool known as "conchi" or "Cura di Tortuga,". My camera died here so I didnt get very good pictures of this cool structure as well as the cave we hiked in.
We became professional beach bums, soaking up the rays, and towards the end of the trip, we were both peeling pretty good. We may look like zebras for our wedding!
Aruba is not a cheap place,but we managed to score a meal on a peir and watched the sunset - it was amazing!
We rented a paddle boat for an hour, it was insane how shallow the water was. We were at least 400 feet from shore and it was five feet deep!
There were a ton of iguanas and blue lizards!
And I thought all coconuts were brown!
All in all, Aruba was a success. Thanks to all who helped us get there! We appreciate it and hope to return sometime in the future.
