# 4: Aruba, an insight into Island life!

One of my favorite times while cruising is waking up and sitting on our balcony with my morning coffee and viewing our new destinations landscape and wondering what exciting adventures we will experience while here. Today I'm looking out over Aruba's Capital Oranjestad. This being our first cruise this was all very new to me of course and today was to be the start of the "exploring" a new destination.

Aruba is the first of the 8 Islands that we will be visiting during the cruise. With eight of us in our touring group it is hard to get a general acceptance of what activity to partake in each day, in the end we all agreed to basically do our own thing while in port. On board you always get a daily "newsletter" dropped into your cabin, this is a bit like a daily paper with news of everything going on board like the many theatres and shows etc., plus it always highlights the main attractions for you to enjoy while in each particular stop. Many of these activities can be organized through the cruise company, this can make your choice of activity easier with transport and a travel guide included. These are not generally cheap though and of course the cruise company clips the ticket as well! We tended to select the activity and find our own way there once on shore. Today the young ones amongst us were just keen to find a beautiful beach and chill out there for the day. Karen and Dave along with Mary and I decided to be more adventurous and explore the Island.

Aruba is a "Kingdom of the Netherlands", and its population is main Dutch, Spanish, American Indian and African. The official languages are Dutch and Papiamentu. In saying that, we didn't have any issues with the locals not speaking English. As per all of the Islands in the Caribbean, tourism is by far their greatest income earner and many of the Islands enjoy over 2 million tourist per season. Our cruise was at a time when the cruise season was coming to an end, and you could sense disappointment of all the locals as it is a pretty grim and quiet time once the cruise ships stop calling for a few months!

Back to our exploring! We rented a car for the day and headed off with the main aim of driving north and south of Oranjestad stopping along the way when we saw something that sparked our interest. Mary had mentioned that she had seen that there was a butterfly farm and was keen for us to visit this. The California Lighthouse is situated at the northern end, so this was our first destination. This is a hugely popular destination for most tourists so when we got there, it was pretty busy with tourist buses and mini vans carrying tourists from the cruise ships, (there were at least 3 ships in this day) It is a fantastic area to view much of the Island from, including what looked like a very nice golf course which sparked my interest. The Island is only about 20 miles long and 6 miles wide so from any elevated spot you can see much of Aruba, we took the opportunity here to enjoy some homemade lemonade and coconut drinks from the actual coconuts while up here.

While driving you can see that Aruba has a mix of areas that are extremely wealthy and also some very depressed areas once you vary off the beaten track, generally though Aruba is regarded as one of the more affluent Islands with beautiful beaches, expensive shops and just about every labeled brand you could think of!

We continued on our way, stopping regularly to view the beaches, shops and have some lunch. Along the way Mary kept mentioning this butterfly farm, the rest of us weren't too interested in this to be honest but we persevered for her and finally found it, ironically not far from where we started off from. In we went and to be fair it was very interesting, and we saw some species there that we'll never see again, I'm sure of that!

Once the exploring by car was finished, we decided that we'd find the others and enjoy some relaxing beach time before heading back to the ship. The beach that they had made home for the day was pretty close to the main harbor and you could see our ship from the beach. The water was everything that I had imagined, tepid but refreshing and certainly no stress with the normal cringing when entering the water at our beaches back home. It was just beautiful and once in there you don't want to get out!

The main thing to remember when cruising is that the ships leave when they say they are going to, if you miss the ship then it's on you to find your way to meet it at the next port so you better have your credit card with you! I'm a bit of a stickler for time and I make it my edict in life to never keep people waiting or be late. For this reason, I'm always the first to say, "pack up and let's go". No problems today though but there is a story for later in the cruise! 😁

Once we were back on board it was a matter of going back to your cabin, unloading the days mementos, showering and getting ready for the night's activities.... all go I can tell you!

I mentioned that I love waking up and watching things as we arrive in a new port, it's just as important to be on deck, (or in your cabin) when you are leaving a port. Many times, there will be local entertainment on the wharf singing to you and in their own way, thanking you for visiting. Once the ship is departed then it is time for us to meet back at the Ice Bar to discuss the day's adventures ........ and of course, enjoy whatever tickles your fancy from the bar. We have formed a habit of dining with the travel group every 2nd or 3rd evening, on the other nights we have joined Alana and Dan in "Blu" restaurant that comes as part of the Aqua Class upgrade, it is pretty special so we may as well take advantage of it!

The night will invariably end with a little play in the casino before a final little tipple, (generally of something a little stronger) before heading back to our cabin to go to bed and listen to the peaceful noise of the ocean through our open balcony door!

What will tomorrow bring!