Aruba 2022 - Day 1: Sun, Sand, and Relaxation

We had a lazy morning, lounging around, swimming, reading on the porch and such. Matt and Diet went on an exploratory drive for a bit. I went on an exploratory snorkel expedition in the lagoon in front of the condo.

While I was reading in the shade, small lizards kept running across the deck. A brief Google search suggests they were Aruban Whiptail Lizards.

Around lunchtime, we packed up the car and headed out for the afternoon, first in search of some lunch, and then to the beach.

There must be at least 20 "supermarkets" in the Savaneta/San Nicolas area... some of them stand out more than others, like the Hong Kong Supermarket and Furniture Store. We've already been to several of them; many appear to be what we might call convenience stores or minimarts, and lots of them have Chinese names and/or Chinese writing on the signs. They seem to be everywhere, as we drive around here. (I even found someone else's blog post about it.)

Our lunch venue today was The Colorado Shack, where we had a variety of rice bowls and a few cups of mabi/mauby/mobi. Matt also bought a bottle of this, yesterday. It's difficult to describe, but is something like spiced ginger beer.

The language situation here is fascinating; signs are often in Dutch and what I'm guessing is Papiamento? And sometimes also in Spanish, due to the large number of South American tourists. But also sometimes in English. Menus seem to be English and Papiamento, but also sometimes Spanish. The street names seem to be mostly Dutch, but the road signs are British style. 🤷‍♂️ 

After lunch, we motored a few miles down the road, toward Baby Beach. There was a small drove of donkeys on the side of the road, but nobody wanted to stop to see them up close.

We parked near Big Mama Grill, and made a mental note to try this place for lunch, some other day.

The beach and water were beautiful, the weather was perfect, and the sun was brutal.

Thankfully, there were a few trees offering shade, all along the sand.

If we were serious beach people, I guess we would have rented a shelter.

We spent a few hours at the beach, swimming, floating, and hiding from the sun.

 

Around 3 PM, we packed up and walked the length of the beach, heading for the Rum Reef bar at the other end for a refreshing beverage and/or a snack.

The bar was a little too loud and a little too pricey, but the drinks were good, the view was good, and it had an infinity pool? I'm not sure what the appeal was, but the seagulls seems to like drinking the water out of it.

After some cold cocktails, we walked out to the end of the rocky (coral) point.

In the background, you can see the (idle) Citgo refinery.

Here, outside the breakwater, the full force of the open ocean was pounding the shoreline.

Eventually, we grew tired of waiting to see if Matt would jump in, and walked along the beach back to the car. Along the way, we had worked up a sweat again. Diet and I jumped back in the ocean to rinse off, but Matt just dunked his head.

It was approaching 5 o'clock as we departed, heading back towards the condo, debating what to do for dinner.

I've seen some cacti on the dry sides of islands before, but have never seen anything like the cactus situation here.

In addition to random cactus clumps along the roadside and between many buildings, there are vast, open areas with nothing but cactus as far as one can see.

These are just some random pictures I took out the passenger window of the car; there are acres and acres of cacti. On a related note, something I read earlier today mentioned that it really doesn't rain here from early January through most of August.

There isn't a huge variety of restaurants near the condo, but we decided to stop at one of the nearby options for dinner: House Of Cakes (Bar & Restaurant). Unfortunately, we neglected to notice that it closes at 4 PM on Mondays.

The other food options in the immediate vicinity were a fast food place and a mini market, so we picked up some ingredients to whip up a quick dinner back at the condo, incorporating some leftovers from last night.

When we got back to the condo, however, the driveway was blocked by a septic truck.

They assured us they would just be a few more minutes (which was true), but we carried our groceries around the truck so we could get dinner started.

The kitchen is serviceable but not huge, and there's only a single outlet over the counter, so I had to make daiquiris on the floor. Sabrina only seemed slightly appalled.

After dinner, we walked down the beach a bit, trying to get a peek at the sunet.

We face a bit too far south to actually see the sun hit the water, but the view was lovely and the temperature had dropped immediately.

It was a perfect evening to sit on the beach with a beer, listening to the waves break on the small seawall in front of the condo.