Aruba - Feb 2, 2014

Aruba is a small island located about a thousand miles west of the Lesser Antilles in the southern Caribbean Sea, located 17 mi north of the coast of Venezuela. Aruba is one of the four constituent countries that form the Kingdom of the Netherlands, along with Holland, Curaçao and Saint Maarten. This flat island with no rivers is renowned for its white sand beaches and tropical climate moderated by constant trade winds from the Atlantic Ocean. The temperature is almost constant at about 81°F. Aruba is divided into the north east and south west coasts. The south west has the white sand beaches, turquoise seas, and warm waters. The north east coast, exposed to the Atlantic, has a few white sand beaches, cacti, rough seas with treacherous currents, and a rocky coastline. We docked at Aruba capital Oranjestad around 7AM in the morning.  

We booked a ATV tour for Aruba excursion.  We got on the ATV around 9AM for a 4 hours tour.  There is a tour guide leading the way and each couple have a double ATV with guy driving and gal as passenger.  The guide led us going through the Oranjestad first and we got a chance to see the real Aruba communities.  One thing we noticed was that it has a lot of Chinese stores.  Almost all the grocery stores have Chinese names.  

The first stop was the Alto Vista Chapel at the Northwest part of the island.  It is a small Catholic chapel also known as "Pilgrims Church" that stands on the hills above the north shore of the sea and to the northeast of the town of Noord. The church painted on the outside in stark bright yellow colour makes it a conspicuous religious monument for people to visit. The present Chapel of Alto Vista was completed in 1952.

The next stop was Baby Natural Bridge.  The Aruba Natural Bridge was a tourist attraction that was formed naturally out of coral limestone. The landmark collapsed on September 2, 2005.  Therefore, the tour guide took us to see the Baby Nature Bridge.  It is smaller but it is still impressive.  

Then we got to Wish Garden and Bushirbana Ruins.  Wish Garden is just a place where people pile up stones to make small wish towers.  There are a lot of them, however, it is not as impressive as the Bushirbana Ruins.  The Bushiribana Ruins was built in 1825 by the Aruba Island Gold Mining Company to extract gold from the ore that was being mined in the nearby hills of Ceru Plat. It operated for ten years. Today, its remains are a stopping-off point for tourists. One can climbs up to the ruin to view the ocean.  It is definitely a nice photo spot. 

The next stop was the Natural Pool in Arikok National Park. Once we got in Arikok National Park, our ATV were fully functionally over the rocky unpaved road.  The uphill and bumpy road gave us an opportunity of fully experiencing the ATV capability and having fun.  The guide kept telling us to dominate the ATV and don’t let the machine control us.  He was right.  When we were on bumpy road, we did need to firmly steering the wheel to move forward in the direction we want to.  It we let it go, then the road would impact the ATV and it would take up to undesired direction. It took some muscle, however, it was fun! 

Natural Pool is a formation of rocks to which waves hit, filling inside the pool with water. It is unique and probably one of the most hidden gem on the island. We also witnessed the tremendous was near the Natural Pool area.  

The next stop is the Ayo Rock Formations which is a monolithic boulder with tunnels and narrow passage ways weaving through the boulders. There are no steps have been carved into the rocks. So, if you want to stand on top of an Ayo boulder, it is up to you to scramble to the top on your own accord. Several of us did climb up to the top of Ayo boulder and had a nice view of the whole Aruba.  

After the tour, we went back to Coral Princess for a nice lunch and then went to Oranjestad downtown area to do some sightseeing and hopefully some shopping.  There are a lot of nice stores in the area, unfortunately there were all closed on Sunday.