Aruba!!

 December 13, 2022

It's a leisurely morning because our excursion doesn't meet until 12:45.  We're going to have a late breakfast and hope that it holds us until dinner tonight.  From our balcony we can almost see the dock!

We get to visit Tobi and Dean in their stateroom and see how the other half lives!  They have a handicapped room and it is quite spacious! There is room for Tobi's wheelchair and her scooter! We're starving because we haven't had breakfast yet, even though Tobi has eaten (as much ass she ever does!) AND gone to the gym.  She's feeling very perky!

Our room steward, Igusti from the Phillipines, is just a hoot!

Tobi's bathroom is three times the size of ours!

The clown car/submarine!

Look how cool the bread bowls are!

From the Windjammer we can really see the gorgeous water and the island with it's volcano poking up. The girls go back to the room while I go searching for a better vantage point without glass in the way.  Back at home we can watch some of the Aqua Theater acts warming up andd there is a strange thing that might be a baby submarine??  About five people with live vests on climb out of it and it reminds me of a clown car!  It's really not very big at all!

We want to leave early since it's our first excursion from this ship and we don't want any unpleasant surprises.  Good thing!  It's a classic case of you can't get there from here!  You really have to take one of the forward elevators to get down to the gangway.  There is an older couple dragging three suitcases that iss trying to leave the ship, obviously dealing with some terrible issue, and they can't get there from here either.  There is a young crewman who finally tries to help them; but we thing we've got it figured out and we go our own way.  Back up to Deck 5 and across and down again. And it works.

We disembark with relative ease, even though Ma really wants to know the name of the young man who is helping her, despite the line of people behind us.  But it's all good.  Everyone is really early and there is plenty of time to hike a million miles to get far enough away from the ship to get the whole thing in one photo!

We're waiting for the excursion to the aloe factory, the California Lighthouse, the Natural Bridge, and the Calibari Rock Formation.  Our bus arrives and our tour guide/driver, Kim Roy, stows Ma's walker under the bus and has her sit in the from seat with Robin so she doesn't have to walk too far.

You can see our HUGE ship from the aloe factory!

some are in bloom!

One of their most popular scents.

Kim is very informative and funny, everything you want in a tour guide! We learn that the kids on Aruba, a Dutch colony, learn four languages in school - English, Dutch, Spanish, and the local patois.  There are two universities, one for medicine and one for law. If kids want to go to a different university they go to the Netherlands because they have Dutch passports!  The government loans them money for school but it must be paid back. There is a zoo and a national park that covers 18% of the island which is six miles wide and nineteen point six miles long. There are only two kinds of snakes on the island, diamond-back rattlers and boa constrictors. There are only nine cows on the island!  Or so Kim says!  They do have goats and sheep and ostriches!  In fact, we pass the ostrich farm! Tourism is their major industry and during the pandemic things were really awful, much like the rest of the world that depends on tourists. The land is volcanic (basalt) with limestone covering much of it and nothing much grows here.  They import all their fruits and vegetables from The United States and Columbia, although they are only fifteen miles off the coast of Venezuela. For some reason that border is now closed and they no longer can get their food from there. 

Aruba is a desert, with only eighteen to twenty inches of rainfall a year.  There are four seasons:  summer, summer, summer, and rain! The vegetation consists primarily of organ pipe cacti, prickly pears, and a strange tree called the divi divi.  It is oddly shaped because the wind always blows from the same direction.  But they are just at the edge of the hurricane belt!

Our first stop is the aloe vera factory and plantation where we can see the plants growing in the field and watch a demonstration of how the aloe is processed by hand.  First it is washed and the bottom of the leaf is cut off, The yellow sap is a very strong laxative and you don't want that mixed in the the commercial product! Our guide demonstrated how to "filet" the leaf, resulting in the clear part of the plant being separated from the outer leaf and the "laxative"!  It is soaked so as to be sure that all the sap is removed and, oddly enough, the sap turns the water purple!  She tells us that the locals eat it every day for digestion and that it reminds her of cucumber, which she hates.  She takes a bit with honey and just swallows it whole.  But if you like cucumber you can chew it!

We also tour the factory before visiting the gift shop!

Our next stop is the California Lighthouse, named after the last ship that sank off the coast and caused the lighthouse to be build.  Along the way we pass enormous hotels, private villas, and also typical Aruban houses.

Such bright colors everwhere!

Notice the windmill in the lower right-hand corner!  

The Five-Star Ritz Carlton, one of the many high rises, with their own casinos, in "Palm Beach"

Eagle Beach

Maureen, Ma, and Robin

Limestone

On to the Natural Bridge which was one of the largest in the world until is collapsed just a few years ago.  But there is a baby bridge and a gift shop.  There are piles of tiny stones (we've seen these all over the world) but here they are in what's called a Wish Garden.  Kin tells us that the best way to make your wish is to pile up six stones for little wishes and then, make your big wish , usually for money, by placing a twenty dollar pill on the sixth stone and covering it with a seventh! Then you walk away for seven minutes and if you return and your twenty is gone, you wish will come true, and so will Kim's!

golf and country club!

Divi divi tree

Even the garbage cans are colorful!  Look at the yellow lid!

Keller Williams!  And there is an Ashley Furniture Store in town.  We're everywhere!

Gulp!  What's going on??... Nothing!! Just saying, "Hi!"

Big chunks of basalt all over

Where the original used to be before it fell into the sea!

Little brother!

Rock Wish Garden

fossilized coral

Don't ask!  Of course I did!

The twenty is gone so I guess his wish came true!

The beautiful like!  you see is on all the Dutch Caribbean islands. The A B C islands, Aruba, Bonaire, 
and Curacoa.

For the geologists

For the mixologists

So I remember to go on Trip Advisor and give Kim five stars so
his boss doesn't fire him!

Our last stop is the second largest rock formation on the island, Casibari Rock Formation. You can climb to the top or walk through the cactus garden or just go to the gift shop.  There is a group of about fifteen young women running and exercising in the garden who appear to be locals making use of the facilities.

When we get back it is already a little after five and we figure we've missed our dinner in the main dining room;  but we text Dean who asks Roque if we can still come.  He says of course and we scurry down because being served a luscious dinner is so much nicer than serving ourselves at the buffet upstairs!

A. second artisan cheese plate appeared!  Roque loves us!

Roasted beets and orange salad

Turkey with all the fixin's

Roque brings us a puzzle every night!

And the answer!

my pavlova with seasonal fruit

She's pretty comfortable at the Martin Brock show!

This was projected on the scrim with just an occasional change to distract us! Sometimes he'd shift his gaze to the side.

or be harassed by an elephant or a ship that flew into his ear!

The Blue Wave

Poindexter with Maureen's glasses!

And without!

One of the waiter sings "Sweet Caroline" and everyone joins in!  It felt like Mexico!

And Roque gave us another puzzle.  He drew three circles and said we could make an animal with only two lines and they don't have to be straight!

Then he asked what room is used in the galley every day.  I got that one!! Mushroom!

Tobi goes back upstairs after dinner but the girls and I go to see Martin Brock in the Royal Theater.  He's a young Dane who does magic and comedy and is adorable.  He's young and unassuming and his slight of hand is very good!  He uses a projector so that we can see what he's doing up close and personal. Dean has managed to get a seat for the adult comedy show that is supposed to be sold out!

After the show Robin and Ma go upstairs while Maureen and I go to the Schooner Bar for a pianist who is playing Broadway melodies.  He's an excellent pianist but is not an entertainer and makes almost no audience contact.  But the couple that we sat near last night is there again and this time we get into a conversation with them.  Tom and Debbie are from North Carolina and we talk about books and cruising and he manages to let us know that they were invited to the captain's special presentation at the beginning of the cruise.  Cruise snobs.  But nice people other than that! tonight's drink is the Blue Wave and I can't hear what the waiter says is in it.  Oh well, I order it anyway.  It's pretty tasteless but a magnificent color!

We're done!  It's been a long day and neither of us got enough sleep last night.  Before turning in, Maureen calls room service because we're out of the forms you use to hang on your door with your order.  Coffee in the morning is vital!

It's midnight and I just can't do pictures tonight!  Sorry!!