We weren't able to find any activities to book on Monday, so we decided to make our own Aruba tour and called Amigo car rentals. Not bad, about $60 for the day. That was the easy part. I had my guide books and list of sights to see, Ellie volunteered to drive, so I felt quite confident being the navigator, especially since I have a pretty good internal compass! I hardly ever get lost. In fact, I felt so confident on this little tiny island, I left "Richard" (my GPS) at Caribbean Palm Village. When I asked the clerk for a better map of the island, she handed me a glossy piece of paper with pics of "tourist hot spots". "Umm, I meant a map with like street names", I said. "Oh, that's the only kind of maps we have here!". ????? Well, I soon found out why, there are no names of streets ON the map...it's because 99% of the streets don't even HAVE a street sign! Those that do are downtown by the cruise ship docks, and that would be it! So, the plan was to go to the east end of the island, locate a "tourist spot" and then follow the line (road) to the next one! I am certainly glad Ellie volunteered to drive, this day would put my navigational skills to the ultimate test! I looked around and spotted a gas station, grocery store (a real one!) and some other unique buildings so that I would be able to figure out how to get us back here by 6pm. Oh, and a last warning...we were NOT to take this rental car into Arikok National Park, we could drive there, but the car would have to be left at the gates and we could hike in. "ok, I said, it was on the list but we like hiking!".
So, next we needed brain food, I spotted a McDonald's and we veered right (into a pothole). Oops. After some caffeine and calories, next we had to find Boolchands to obtain a memory card for Ellie's new camera, some souvenirs, and also to get a lay of the land. It was only about 8am ish and I think most of the islanders were still in bed, so, we were clipping along at about 30 mph downtown when we saw lots of these signs, we didn't may much attention, must be we might have to yield or something.....
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WHUMP! We FLEW about 5 feet off the ground and a car length ....The above signs meant a "sleeping policeman"...or speed bump! But as you can see, this is not a good 'ole US of A speed bump! We went flying Dukes of Hazzard Style! Oops, I felt bad for our car!Don't you think they should be painted bright yellow instead of pink!
So, off we started on our adventure for the day, roundabout after roundabout, yellow highway, stopped at a gas station with my "map" to find out where I was, only to find they only spoke spanish, but I just pointed where I wanted to go, and eventually they figured out I just needed to know where I WAS at the moment. Only a few hundred feet off course, we got back on the intended road and eventually made it to the north east end of the island and saw signs for Arikok National Park. Finally, we made it to a picture, we just decided to check this out, because we were nearby and what if we didn't find it again?! So, I hopped out, paid our entrance fee, had wrist bands affixed to us and went into the park.
We had to choose either the left path, or the right path, I told Ellie, always choose right. So, into to the park we went. Now, here they had REVERSE sleeping policeman! HUGE "ditches" ran across the roadway. I think most likely for water runoff during rainy season. But, is an itty bitty foreign car whose undercarriage was less than a foot off the ground, this was potentially a very BAD thing! Ellie carefully maneuvered all 41 (each way, so 82 times she did this!) of these ditches, pulling the car in sideways very very slowly, and up at an angle....did I say how very glad I was that she was driving! Here's some pics below of her carefully easing the car in and out of them, some were more shallow than others, some were MUCH deeper!
After a few hours into the park, I remembered the rental car lady's stern warning about not taking the car INTO Arikok National Park...OOPS! Ellie just laughed. But the funniest part was, upon returning the car, we had FORGOTTEN to take off our neon wristbands that gave us entrance into the park! Bigger OOPS! Thankfully, she didn't question us further or impose a fine!
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