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Published: February 12th 2008
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Tranquil Turquoise
No, the colours were not artifically enhanced After spending 3 days in intense conference activities (and one fun night at the conference dinner where 50 year old academics started doing playing limbo), it was time to hit the tourist trail again.
Till now, those conference days had been essentially work punctuated with good eating and the occasional lazing on the resort beach. As far as resorts go, I have to say the Marriot resort was rather disappointing - nicely decorated, but not much to do. I guess its geared more at the 'laze about and do nothing all day', rather than the more active, 'let’s see some fun' tourist. The breakfast buffet though is great!
The night before, we checked out a local festival. Now given that we're in the Caribbean, you'd expect festivals to be fairly excitable events - lots of dancing, singing, lights, etc. Seems these Arubans have a very different idea of partying though. The supposed 'festival' consisted of sleepy-looking, slightly geriatric dancers that clearly spent their life entertaining the elderly package tour circuit. The highlight was the well advertised 'tinky-link' - a unique instrument to Aruba. Essentially it was a wind up pipe organ - yippee for originality Arubans. There was however
More gorgeous blue
I'm sure they put chemicals in here to get it this blue. a very cool steel band drum which made up for the rest of the event.
We had also checked out a real local restaurant - a little hut-like place in the middle of the desert, surrounded by cacti, stray dogs, and patronized only by locals. The food here was great - good prices, great taste, particularly the little breads thingys they had. The waitress seemed rather thrilled at our attempts to photograph all the food - particularly when one of the guys pulled out a tripod and started getting real serious about it all.
Saint Nicholas, a totally non-tourist town on the far south-east tip of the Island had also been on our agenda. The idea was to get away from all the Americans and immerse ourselves in real Aruban life. Well, there's a reason nobody really goes to Saint Nicholas - well, not tourists anyway. Simply put - it's scary at night. No particular reason, possibly just our paranoia, but being 3 young healthy males still didn't prevent us from parking outside the police station and walking very warily around that town. It possibly could have been the numerous cars driving down some of the streets that
Sunset towards Venezuela
The scene from our exclusive fish restaurant. Tres romantic. would slow down suspiciously whenever they passed women in short skirts ... hmm, possibly our friend from
the chicken shop is running his little operation around here.
Okay, so back to today. The goal for today was to find a perfect beach. So far, the beaches we had seen were good, but not that picture-perfect paradise that makes you want to retire to a local island. Some guys at the conference had recommended one such beach though they couldn't remember exactly where it was (instructions were something like 'yeah over that part somewhere on the island'). So the idea today was no going home till we find that confounded beach.
A few too many u-turns, a few 'why did you tell me to make that stupid turn', and of course the mandatory 'forget about this dumb beach', we managed to find the place. It was totally worth it. It was basically situated on a neighborhood street - the little secret of a select few locals where they alone could enjoy the turquoise paradise. See the photos for yourself and tell me if that isn't great!
However, two guys lying on the beach alone, no matter how beautiful, does get
Mmmm
Makes be hungry even now. a bit dull as well as a tad suspicious after awhile. Particularly when said guys start taking photos of each other (we wanted to capture the beautiful scenery!!). So we decided to engage in something a bit more manly - snorkeling with little pink fins in a nearby bay. This too was rather spectacular - although we needed to work for the beauty by swimming through some torrential waves first. However, on the other side was a serene underwater haven of colourful fish and coral. Its amazing how colourful the world is under the sea!
We capped off the day with a meal at a famous fish restaurant overlooking the water and with a vague view of Venezuela (its only 20km south of Aruba). Once again, two guys alone in a fairly romantic setting was a tad uncomfortable, even more so when once again we started photographing each other. Still, the food was worth the embarrassment.
Well, that's it for Aruba. The rest of the trip here consisted of more beach, more eating and of course more conference. All in all, Aruba is a great little island, though I wouldn't say it’s that 'island paradise' we all dream
Aruban cheesy bread stuff
Full of fat, cholestrol and all those wonderful things that guarantee you an early death. for simply for the fact that there are a gazillion oversized Americans hee-hawing about.
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