Arikok National Park & the Natural Pool with ABC Jeep Tours!

Once again we awoke before sunrise on Thursday January 29 so that we could await out 7:45am pickup by ABC Jeep Tours on Aruba. We were taken to the office where we filled out the usual waiver of liability forms, except they only had Spanish versions left, at least I'm pretty sure it was a waiver! Anyway, we would need to take 2 jeeps, 8 + Curtis the guide in ours, and about a half dozen in a separate jeep. Ellie was a little bummed as she thought we each had a jeep and she could drive...but, when a fellow "tourist" got to drive the 2nd jeep she was a good sport. 

 We were on our way, once again, to Arikok National Park. Except today, we took the left fork! We soon found out that there was no "road" ! I shudder to think of our poor little rental car if we had even attempted this route! But, Curtis from ABC Jeep Tours was very skilled at driving the terrain and kept us safe! He joked that ABC really stands for "Adventures By Curtis"!

The stoic pipe-smoking-white-haired man driving the other jeep was doing pretty good. Only a few times did he have difficulty and lost a gear. I'd still be in the parking lot! Dark clouds loomed overhead, then the torrential downfall started as we all raced to lower the vinyl sides to keep the rain out.

Soon, the sun came out, the sides were rolled up and we were on our way to the Natural Pool!

So, the Natural Pool is the area

 in the picture about 1 o'clock. Supposedly, a calm area of water surrounded by large rocks where a lot of people and fish swim. The jeep was parked on the cliff and we hiked down to get to the beach.

A decent size crab I found camouflaged by the rocks.

He even waited for me to go in

front of him to take his photo!

So, after a hike and some interesting critters, we arrived at "the natural pool". Since we were both badly sunburned from the previous day, we opted to swim with a shirt on (perhaps that should have been the plan the day before!..I WILL bring AND wear my wetsuit next time!)

Everyone jumped in and a few folks ventured into the higher pool, its just to the left of the highest rock you see where the water is pouring out. But you have to scamper up there on some pretty slick rocks, and to exit you jump out and hopefully not catch a rock! But, the clouds once again tried to spoil the party!

Here's me giving the thumb's up while someone behind me scampers up into the upper pool. (It's really dark, but if you click on the photo to enlarge it you can see better what I mean).

Ellie with a smile on her face before it really got rough!

This was the outer border of the pool where it is fed by the Atlantic Ocean. A few minutes after taking this picture, I thought it might be kind of neat to attempt to try to get to the upper pool! And Ellie thought it would be kind of cool to snorkel in the middle of the pool. Well a HUGE wave set crashed in sending me INTO the rocks and nearly sweeping Ellie OUT TO SEA! YIKES! Neither one of us knew where the other was, but we both knew immediately the party was over! I struggled to keep from getting continually bashed into the rocks, and Ellie swam like heck to stay in the pool! Thankfully, everyone was safe and I only had a small cut on my leg. We IMMEDIATELY exited the pool!

A cool rock I found...that I had to put back...

Taking our time going back up to the cliff, I found this really cool crab with blue eyes! Then it was back into the jeep and on to the Fontain Cave!