travels.of.tara

Aruba is paradise. It was an amazing 5 days with Angelica and Diana, with a perfect blend of adventure, relaxation, and indulgent fun. I’m pretty proud of the video project I made, which captures what it really looked and felt like. Living our best lives.

I almost didn’t make it there. After 2 years I finally got covid, developing symptoms the Wednesday night before my Friday morning flight the following week. Needless to say I was highly motivated to get better, and by the following Wednesday morning I tested negative. While there are no longer restrictions to get into Aruba, there’s still a 1-day test requirement to get back into the US. Since you can test positive for up to 90 days after recovering, there’s an option to show a letter from a doctor documenting recovery and clearing you to travel. After days in a bureaucratic quagmire I managed to do a video appointment with my doctor on Thursday at 4:30pm, multitasking while on a work zoom. After showing my negative tests and answering questions, she agreed to write the letter, and I immediately felt better and ready to travel. Post-covid life is beautiful and free and all I want to do is take advantage of life while I can. As I write this I’m getting ready for another trip this week, and I’m already worried about the 4-month gap until my next planned trip.

But Aruba is one that will stay with me for a while. Affiliated with the Netherlands, the small island’s natives officially speak Dutch and a local language called Papiamento, and growing up also learn English and Spanish. Like much of the Caribbean the economy is based strongly on tourism. They accept the American dollar everywhere so we didn’t have to change money to the local currency, and the tourist infrastructure was all just easy. And because of the proximity to Venezuela and the wind patterns, it is outside of the hurricane belt, making it a year-round paradise that happens to be exceptionally low on the humidity scale. In case you don’t notice the flat hair, the island is filled with cacti to remind you about the desert landscape. Of course the palm trees and perfect stunning beaches also make it a magical place.

We chose Aruba a bit randomly, aiming for a specific long weekend and an international destination that was easy enough in a pandemic. As I’ve been learning in my quest to become a cheap flights expert, we were guided to Aruba by the cheap flights. I naturally took care of all the logistical planning, leaving the food/fun details to Angelica and Diana. We stayed in the high-rise hotel area in Palm Beach, about a 20-30 minute taxi ride from the airport in downtown Oranjestad. The Holiday Inn resort was the best price I could find for something nice right on the beach in that area, and I worked hard to get a package deal with our flight on Priceline (in hindsight I won’t use them again as they overcharged me for an extra 3 one-way flight tickets and it took many, many hours to correct their mistake). We skipped the all-inclusive option so we could explore other places, though we really took advantage of just falling outside the hotel room onto the wave-free, pristine ocean beach. Nearby Eagle Beach also had nice options and was quieter, but seemed less walkable and we wanted to be car-free for most of the trip. We’re all glad we went with the resort instead of Airbnb options that looked nice but were farther away from the beach — the tourist economy made the hotel so much easier for tours, amenities, etc. For meals and drinks we found lots of great places right outside the resort, so there were tons of easy and yummy options, though the prices were a bit high. I definitely spent more money than I’m used to on this trip, and it was a strange situation where I constantly had to remind myself I could afford it now. I’m proud of myself for working hard and fighting for raises at work! I truly do it for experiences like this.

With 3 full days we had some great adventures. On day 1 we rented a car from a local company that picked us up at our hotel, and explored the west coast of the island. We started with a memorable vegan cafe breakfast spot adjacent to a yoga studio. (I’ll say our only tension on this trip was Diana and my lack of prioritization for breakfast and Angelica’s reliance on it — but we learned to compromise!) We headed to the northern most tip of the island and walked up the California Lighthouse for pretty and windy views. We made a quick stop and Tres Trapi, a tiny roadside rocky beach our taxi driver had recommended. It was a stunning spot and highlight for me — I went swimming a bit, just up to my butt, and risked being a little damp in the car for a while. It was worth it to feel the magic water and see the crabs climbing on the rocks. I could have spent hours there.

From there, we stopped at the aloe farm and factory to learn about the island’s major economic product. It’s supposed to be the best aloe and is exported all over the world. It was a lovely little spot, and we enjoyed sampling and buying all the products. (And later, we enjoyed finding all of their stores around the island and getting free samples!) From there we took a longer drive (30-40 minutes) to around San Nicolas, the second largest city and a much poorer/non-touristy area close to our southern-most destination of Baby Beach. We stopped at a crusty roadside grocery store and loaded up on snacks and local beers, noticing that name-brand products were surprisingly expensive, since they are all imported in. The cooler bag we brought came in handy for the whole trip. Baby Beach was really beautiful, though also windy. We spent a few hours there, enjoying seeing the waves breaking on rocks that made the swimming beach calm and clear. On the way back, we drove through what looked on the map like downtown San Nicolas. The empty, narrow streets were pretty and looked full of culture but we all decided it was best not to stop to walk around. We later confirmed our suspicions that we were in the part of town where you can pick up a prostitute; so those pantsless women sitting in the doorways really did have a purpose for being there… A little up the road was the neighborhood we were actually looking for, where we saw some great murals on the buildings.

We made another quick beach stop at Mangel Halto, where we watched the early sunset on the beach with mangrove trees. Wild dogs awkwardly started following us around, and we were getting so hungry that we quickly escaped in the car. Around this point, our one phone we put a sim card into ran out of data, leaving us a little lost with just whatever memory google maps had remaining. It was not too bad since there was just one major road to follow. Once we made it near Oranjestad we stopped in a hotel to use the bathroom and their wifi, and we were back on track. We still had phone reception for the trip, and we didn’t really miss the data plan otherwise as long as we planned ahead. We had dinner that night at a nice place at a resort near Eagle Beach. While waiting for our table we walked on the deep beach and watched the amazing sunset. From there we headed back, dropping off the car about a 10-minute walk from the hotel.

Our next day was the highly-anticipated trip to Flamingo Beach, located on a private island. As the name suggests, there are about a dozen wild flamingos who live on the beach. Getting the tickets isn’t easy, but once again a little pre-trip research paid off. The island is owned by the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Oranjestad, and hotel guests can take the little skipper boat the 10 minute ride to the island anytime, since the hotel doesn’t have a regular beach. The hotel is a little pricey though, and we didn’t want that to be our main location for the whole trip, so we instead got day passes. For $125 per person you can stay on the island all day, have a free lunch and one drink, and have access to amenities like floats, snorkels, and towels. They offer a very limited number of day passes each day depending on capacity at the hotel, and they don’t publicize when they become available online. After weeks of checking, I determined that they popped up on Saturday mornings. So in my covid-half-sleeping haze, I checked the website every hour from 7-10am, finally seeing them and gobbling up 3 of the 5 available tickets on the site for that day. So proud!

We got an early start that day, having our taxi take us back to yesterday’s vegan breakfast spot for takeout and then on to the boat, where we hopped right on and arrived to the island at 9am. We were greeted by a big pelican hanging out on the dock, unafraid of people. To the left was Iguana Beach, which we checked out first (we left a piece of cake there for a few minutes which got devoured by birds!), and to the right was Flamingo Beach, where the flamingos have a little area and like to stay. Kids aren’t allowed on Flamingo Beach except for one hour in the morning, making it a perfect quiet spot for us to stay all day. We walked on the beach and there they were, just chilling. They are not afraid of people, but don’t get close unless they feel like it. You can feed them little pellets, which felt funny with their hard beaks, and enjoy their chill company. A non-photographed moment for me included floating on a pool float in the perfect calm beach, and paddling myself over to a flamingo who was hanging out in the water, and just kind of watching each other for a while. It was dreamy. The beach day itself was also amazing, of course. We swam, floated, snorkeled, drank champagne, enjoyed both sun and shade under thatched umbrellas, and had lots of interludes with the flamingos. I knew it would be a bad sunburn day for myself despite near constant sunscreening, but I didn’t care, it was so perfect. We ate at the covered beach cafe restaurant for a sun break and I had an overly sweet bright blue cocktail that I would never order anywhere else. I also explored a little nature path in the trees but realized I wasn’t wearing shoes and turned around before going too far, and we got to watch the wild iguanas eat a big pile of lettuce put out for them. At the end of the day we cleaned up in the bathroom shower and headed back on the boat as the sun began to set. We walked around Oranjestad a little and ate dinner at a yummy Cuban restaurant. It was a little tricky to find a taxi back, which they told us was due to traffic, but we didn’t experience any except on the streets right by our hotel.

We had a long beach morning the next day, me hiding under towels to protect my sunburn (hotel cheapness – chairs are free but palapas (umbrellas) are $50 a day and you have to reserve in advance). We got lunch at a well-known beach shack closeby and then got ready for our afternoon adventure. The giant 4×4 open air, tiger-striped vehicle picked us up in front of the hotel, and after picking up another family with lots of kids (we all quietly groaned) we headed east to explore Arikok National Park and the rockier, wilder side of the island. It was a bumpy, windy ride, and at some spots it was shocking that a vehicle would even attempt to drive there. A scary moment involved a dropped water bottle on a hill, and the driver reacting by backing up down the hill, casually pulling the emergency break, and hopping out to grab it. Yikes! And another weird moment on the drive back when one of the little girls got stung on the leg by a bee while in the moving vehicle, barely reacted except for looking serious, and her brother squeezed her other leg, turning it white, for the remaining 20 minute ride. Weird kids. Those two were family friends of the other kids and the grown ups with them; I guess their parents really needed a break.

The stops were great. First, a beautiful beach that we viewed from above, finally seeing some big waves. Next, a beautiful cave, complete with bats. And finally the highlight, a swim and snorkel in the natural pool, a little swimming hole protected from waves by big rocks, and definitely inaccessible by a regular car. There were so many colorful fish! Our guide did a cliff jump that none of us were willing to brave, and at one point I watched him dive down 15 feet to rescue some lost treasure, a gold chain necklace. Apparently people often lose things there, and he helps return them through a Facebook group — even once shipping a German couple a lost wedding ring! We managed to rock scramble back to get a phone for pictures, and posed under an unpredictable rock wall that periodically had giant waves crashing over.

Our nights around the hotel were of course very fun. We made friends with a bartender who had moved to Aruba from Colombia, though Angelica was the only one who could really talk to her in Spanish. Somehow she agreed to meet us for dinner our last night! We enjoyed some touristy shopping areas, and generally just ate and drank really well. Aruba was a true luxurious delight and I’m so happy with the perfect blend of relaxation and adventure. Onward!