We got to Philip's Animal Garden (zoo) where the tour started and saw a line of orange all terrain vehicles, asked if they were all for today's tour and found out they were. Awesome. (not really).
We were given a bag of carrots and pellets to feed the animals while they got everyone sorted who arrived behind us on two buses and we killed some time doing that and using the facilities.
Sophie kept warning me not to go too close to the ostriches and that they have very long necks! (and are vicious).
I said to Jay "maybe we should find out how much extra a private tour is..". Considering all those orange Rangers. So when we got back to the front he asked - it's $100. Sold. We now have our own private guide, Francis.
First stop was the chapel from yesterday - it's called Alta Vista chapel but is also known as the Pilgrims chapel. A Missionary built it in the 1700's to protect the Indians from the Spaniards who would take them to Curaçao to sell as slaves. It was originally built from cactus and clay. He taught the native people Christianity, now the island is 90% Christian and 10% "a mash up". But then the Indians were getting yellow fever and they thought the God of the Sun was angry and making them sick so they moved out of the chapel to the West Coast in 1750. (and then got sold to Curaçao as slaves). In 1950 a school teacher found the chapel while hiking with a group of children and crawled into it to find fresh candles lit in the crumbled chapel ruins. She fundraised to rebuild a building the same size and shape as the original chapel, which is what we see today.
The things I learned from Francis:
There are 179,000 people living in Aruba and 133 nationalities. Thats why they are called One Happy Island, which is on their license plates. Aruba is a Dutch Island, each Aruban has a Dutch European passport. It's 30 miles off the coast of Venezuela and people swim as a fundraiser for breast cancer, etc. But there are Bull Sharks in the water so there were a lot of boats and wave runners in the water to make sure it's safe. Francis was on a wave runner and said it was fun.
I just came out after refilling our sours and told Trevor "I think our jug has a hole in it". He asked, why, is it leaking? I said "no, it's empty". Very unfortunate. So we made anther pitcher. We are also out of limes (and tequila, 2L down) but Jay is going to the grocery store to pick up cheese for our nachos for dinner so I added limes to the list.
And then there was the sad donkey with the puppy dog eyes perfected, like feed me, I'm so hungry.
And the alpaca, I mean they're so ugly they're cute - kinda like my twins when they were born as 90 year old men.
I said to Jay "maybe we should find out how much extra a private tour is..". Considering all those orange Rangers. So when we got back to the front he asked - it's $100. Sold. We now have our own private guide, Francis.
BEFORE
AFTER
We got buffs to keep the dust out of our faces. Which Sophie wore like a kerchief and looked like a movie star with her new sunglasses. The rest of us looked like bandits, like Paige.
First stop was the chapel from yesterday - it's called Alta Vista chapel but is also known as the Pilgrims chapel. A Missionary built it in the 1700's to protect the Indians from the Spaniards who would take them to Curaçao to sell as slaves. It was originally built from cactus and clay. He taught the native people Christianity, now the island is 90% Christian and 10% "a mash up". But then the Indians were getting yellow fever and they thought the God of the Sun was angry and making them sick so they moved out of the chapel to the West Coast in 1750. (and then got sold to Curaçao as slaves). In 1950 a school teacher found the chapel while hiking with a group of children and crawled into it to find fresh candles lit in the crumbled chapel ruins. She fundraised to rebuild a building the same size and shape as the original chapel, which is what we see today.
The things I learned from Francis:
There are 179,000 people living in Aruba and 133 nationalities. Thats why they are called One Happy Island, which is on their license plates. Aruba is a Dutch Island, each Aruban has a Dutch European passport. It's 30 miles off the coast of Venezuela and people swim as a fundraiser for breast cancer, etc. But there are Bull Sharks in the water so there were a lot of boats and wave runners in the water to make sure it's safe. Francis was on a wave runner and said it was fun.
The island is 22 miles around and has 8 districts, each has a water tank at the top of the hill to provide water. Aruba has the 2nd largest desalination plant in the world. Water is taken from the ocean, processed through coral, steamed, minerals are added and you have the "best water in the world" (next to that of Durham Water Treatment - shameless plug).
I got a lot of history until I found out that Francis tunes specialty cars and went to school in Puerto Rico for Mechanical Engineering. He is fourth generation in a specialty auto shop that tunes for the Quarter Mile drag.
ThIs is Francis showing them all his cars and talking specs with Jay. Lol.
I did get some other info when I asked, lol. Aruba only has two universities on the island a Medical University and a Law University and they are both expensive. If you want to study anything else you have to leave the island. Most go to Europe. Education is free through Highschool.
Health care is $15 for every 15 years and when I said "why $15?" He told me it's for the card and showed me his Health Card and Drivers License.
Minimum wage is $1,000 a month but he said you can't live off that. His water bill for his family of 4 is $500-$600USD per month (the best water in the world doesn't come cheap!). The average house costs $145,000USD and getting a mortgage is difficult. Most of the local people have homes passed on to them from family through the sons.
Jay asked about something out in the water later on, they're oil rigs. They found natural gas off the Coast between Aruba and Venezuela so now they are negotiating with the two countries for the rights for the gas, but on Arubas side they are negotiating with the Netherlands. . The current government is also negotiating for Aruba to become sovereign, which Francis seemed to want though we didn't ask more about why, but to keep the European passport.
I heard Francis talking to someone and asked about the national language. The National language, he said, is a mix of Spanish, English, Dutch and Portuguese called Papiomindo, but the official language is Dutch.
That's a summary of what info I got over the course of the tour.
We retraced our steps a bit from yesterday's drive in the Jeep but then went beyond to the National Park. From the Chapel we made our way to the Gold Mill ruins. There used to be a wooden windmill built 1874, north eastern trade winds turned the mill which had a hammer to break the volcanic rocks the island is formed out of under the layer of coral. The centre of the volcanic rock holds a white shiny rock and that has veins of gold.
The Mill was built to look like a fort to scare off pirates who assumed if the building had windows there were cannons. The Mill stored the broken rocks waiting for transportation to where they would process them using heat and extract the gold.
The inukshuks started as fishermen marking where they had a good catch so they then knew where to return to. Tourists came and saw the piles and copied them and copied them and now they are a tradition for wishes. Every rock in your pile is another wish.
Actually between the chapel and the ruins we stopped briefly at Baby Natural Bridge, what I said in yesterday's blog was Black Bridge. There was a bigger one that collapsed in 2005 during hurricane Ivan which used to be the biggest in the Caribbean and the biggest attraction for Aruba. It collapsed in the middle of the night, so no one was hurt.
Andicuri Beach was our favourite with its safe waves and no riptide. We will come back here for sure because there is some shade and it's not busy except for all the ATV tours! It's also sand all the way out, with no rocks or coral.
On we went
The coastline is absolutely beautiful.
The Natural Pool in the National Park is a big attraction, we came, we saw, we opted not to climb down to go to it because we knew the girls wouldn't go in and the 50 orange Rangers were there and we didn't want to get stuck behind them!
We all have wind hair.
After we are all done and head out our hair is full of dust and the wind has dried it right out.
We asked Francis where to for lunch and told him where we ate yesterday (so he knew we were ok with local!). He sent us to a place called Sheriff's and said it was Peruvian and very good. We got there and its not somewhere we would ever have stopped. It was 'fast food' style but really good and cheap.
I ordered lomo saltado, I couldn't remember what it was but remembered my Mom had said she loved it in Peru. It was really good.
Jay had a chicken sandwich.
Trev and Sophie had chicken fried rice which had a fried egg on top but Trev was too hungry and I was too slow to get the photo. And Sophie's egg is on Jays sandwich.
And Paige had chicken breast and fries, which was a chicken breast and fries but apparently didn't warrant a picture. She didn't think so either and at one point after I said mine was steak she said, as she shoved hers around "I thought mine was going to be a steak.." I reminded her that she ordered a chicken breast so thinking she would get steak was pretty much the stupidest (insert silliest but I meant stupidest) thing she could have said all day.
Now we are back at the house, it's 5pm, we had a swim to remove the layer of dust from our bodies and I'll do a load of laundry in the morning to clean the clothes (yup, I got laundry pods in my backpack). Trev and I enjoyed a sour, he had a nap.
Paige refilled our drinks and we made another pitcher. Jay is drinking Ron Zacapa and strawberry lemonade, they're deadly. I have to switch to Pina Coladas at some point, but don't want to, if I don't open the rum I bought I can take it home I figure. Might as well drink the good stuff!
After dinner we chill on the covered patio. We haven't encountered too many bugs but Sophie has a few bites.
Tomorrow Jay and Trev have a kite surfing lesson. The girls and I will stay home in the morning and we'll have lunch at home when they're done and head down to the South end of the island to Baby Beach for the afternoon, which sounds a lot like Sauble Beach with its long sand bar. The girls are excited, Jay not so much but he can have his excitement with his lesson in the morning (and bring some rum in the cooler) and maybe there will be an off-road up the East Coast on the way home.
Are we going to see the same photo of Trev napping every day? Lomo Saltado - the first time we got it we thought the rice and fries was weird. Looks perfect! I like that you're hitting all the johnny spots.
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