December 23 – Oranjestad, Aruba

almost South America

Weather – 29º, sunny

Steps – 9,558

Humidity – 80%

Today we are in Aruba. Aruba (pop 100,000) is a volcanic island in the southern Caribbean, 29 Km north of Venezuela. It is the A in the ABC Islands. Oranjestad is the capital, where we are docked today. Aruba is a ‘constituent island country’ within the kingdom of the Netherlands. I can’t quite figure that out. The Netherlands takes care of defense and foreign affairs, but other country issues, Aruba controls itself.

We start the day at a butterfly farm. Here we learn about a few kinds of
butterflies, how they metamorphosize and get to see them flying and flitting all around us. Then we has some time to wander the enclosure to just admire the butterflies.

so many butterflies

We then shared a $7USD, 200 mL local beer called Chill. Good, normal Caribbean beer.

baby beer

Then we visited the Aruba Aloe Museum and Factory. We saw the plants, and learned how they are processed into creams, soaps, and potions. I thought they might also have an aloe drink…I’ve seen such a thing at home. They talked about how much more powerful Aruba aloe is from that from the rest of the world and how much of a laxative it is, maybe this is why there were no food or drink

products.

aloe factory

Lastly, we visited the northern part of the island and a national park. Here we drove along the sea watching waves crash onto coral. The main attraction here is the ruins of the Baby Natural Bridge - a coral arch that spanned a finger of the sea until it collapsed in 2005.

north side of the island

After the tour we knew we wanted to find the mall and a specific shoe store we knew was here…Pretty Ballerinas. We found it, but it wasn’t open…odd. It was in an open-air mall where all of the other stores were open. There was no sign or indication as to why it was closed. We thought we’d find lunch and come back. Nope, still closed…very odd. I
would never have cared to even visit, but we visited the factory on Menorca, Spain a few years back and I bought a pair then, I love the shoes, wear them all the time, so thought another would be good…nope.

normal sized beer

Lunch was a success though. We sat at the bar at Lucy’s – it was taco Tuesday. We had a couple tacos each and another 200mL beer (no one is over consuming these baby things!) The beef taco ($2USD) was particularly delicious. I could have had 10! This was by far our least expensive meal of the trip.

We found a couple of Balashi T-shirts on the way back. I guess I’ll have to settle for T-shirts and not shoes.

I can look, but can't buy

This morning, we learned that Aruba’s economy is close to 100% based on tourism. We were one of 3 ships in today. Our ship only has 700 passengers, but along with the other 3 there was total of 7,800ish passengers – this doesn’t account for the 2,800ish staff.

Although, Uri, our guide didn’t mention it, I can’t

oil platform in the distance

help thinking about what places like this did during Covid when all of the tourists stopped coming. I know many countries are pushing back against tourism, but what on earth did these folks do for money during covid. I’ve heard that many day trippers come and don’t spend money, not adding to the economy. I didn’t see much evidence of that today. Hoards of people from all 3 ships were buying shirts, beer, tours and jewelry.

Lucy's for lunch

Neither of us was all that hungry after the tacos, so didn’t feel the need for a lot more for lunch – plus, all that was open at 3, when we returned to the ship, was the pool grill. We had a slice of pizza each and some salad.

For dinner we sat outside at the ship's Italian restaurant. 

The evening show was a violinist – an electric violin. I had high hopes at the beginning of the show as she started with a heavy version of Smooth Criminal. The rest was fine, but just fine. I suppose it’s hard to appeal to many tastes. I should be happy with even one song less than 50 years old.