First Friday in Aruba

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Another lovely day, less cloudy perhaps than some others, and more windy. High 80s? But our car said 96. We did not try for an early morning turtle safari, and arrived at Arashi (the most northern beach) around 9:15. The current was strong so I didn’t go out any further than the elkhorn corals. Now that the white buoy has been added, it helps us know which way to aim, at least.

Uh oh – there’s a turtle! So off goes Aquaman, leaving me behind. I just hung around the corals, occasionally looking up to see that David had gone all the way to the buoy. He admitted it was a good swim back to me but his video is magnificent – that turtle was one laid back dude.

After showering, we were off to try to find the burrowing owl again – and there he/she was! So cute. Such long legs! Although rather knock-kneed. The Papiamento name for this owl is "shoco." Estimate is only 150 pairs left due to over development and boa constrictors that somehow got here.

We ate our sandwich lunches overlooking the lovely ocean before returning to the hotel.

One nap later, we wondered if we were going out for dinner for a change. We ended up at Red Fish, which is not far away, and a local fish restaurant. We had one barracuda meal and one whole red snapper, with rice and “funchi,” which is a soft cornmeal “cake.”



Is anyone interested in what’s here at La Cabana? We book it because we own timeshare with Blue Green, and Blue Green owns a portion of it. Every room has cooking facilities and frig, plates, saucepans, etc. Just no oven. It’s 4 stories, and you can have a Studio (we prefer this and it’s least of the “points” we have to pay: chairs at the island can seat 4 because it’s a queen bed plus fold out queen sofa.) Then there are one-bedroom units, where you get a bedroom separate from the small living room/kitchen combo. That’s the kind of room we got when Megan was with us, and when more family is with us we often get the combination of the above, as there arebadjoining doors. Then there is the rare 2 bedroom, 2 bath unit, which we’ve managed to book twice. Mostly we just book 2 studios when we come with another couple.

La Cabana has an awesome pool, which we rarely go into, and it’s just across a small street to Eagle Beach and its amazing white sand. It’s a lovely beach to walk early in the morning (if you don’t have exhausted knees!), and lots of people just sit under the shade palapas in lounge chairs all day. Don’t know why.

The water off Eagle Beach is lovely for bobbing and floating, but not for snorkeling, as there aren’t any rocks, let alone reef.

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