Fontain Cave with ABC Jeep Tours

After drying off from our dip in the Natural Pool, the Jeep Tour continued in Arikok National Park at the Fontain Cave. The cave was ironically right behind the quaint restaurant that we ate lunch at Monday. Many years ago, natives used the cave system as a shelter, and there were several pictographs inside!

It was pretty dark and narrow, and we only ventured in about 25 feet at the most....I pretty much made a b-line for the entrance when others asked what was beyond and were told about the creepy-crawlers that also shared the space!..and bats.

I really have no clue what this stood for, but it was close to the light of the entrance, and since I discovered

that my flash was not functioning at all...this was the best I could do. All the more reason for a camera upgrade!

Yep, stalactites and stalagmites, just like in all the other caves I've been to.











From here you might be able to see some of the pictographs on the ceiling.


Yay! Out of the creepy cave, yes, I've been in caves before (Mammoth Cave, Wind Cave, Jewel Cave), but this cave was just sort of creepy. Maybe because it was smaller? Anyway, happy to be in the sunshine, I found this cactus with a pretty yellow fruit of some sort!

And, the best photo of the Aruban Whiptail Lizard yet!

Back into the brightly colored jeeps we climbed, off to the southeast part of the island and to Baby Beach (near the Seroe Colorado "lighthouse"), but on the way we passed the wind farm, penitentiary and these goats!

And some donkeys......

After some of the passengers fed the donkeys some bread, we were off to go snorkeling at Baby Beach!

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!

Arikok National Park Part 1

 Shortly after entering Arikok National Park, we were faced with a choice...left fork or right fork. Thankfully we did NOT choose this path and opted for the REAL road, we would take this "road" on Thursday on a Jeep tour. Let me just say if we would have taken that "road"..I'm sure we would have abandoned the car!


  The only Trupiaal that I saw the whole time I was there! A beautifully colored bird it stood out!

 Me standing amongst the candle cacti and prickly pear type cacti alongside the road.

 Ellie got a little upset with me because I tended to get really excited and jump out of the car unexpectedly! She soon realized it was a LOT harder to get me back INTO the car!!! After this she made me promise to alert her BEFORE exiting the car and to wait until the car was safely stopped and in park! I just can't help it that I get excited...but after that for the most part I complied, and she soon learned when I would make an excited squeal or some other sound, that it meant I would soon ask her to stop asap!

 Out of the corner of my eye I spotted this bird, a Cara Cara I was told, but didn't have a chance to get a close up! I guess it's of the Eagle family.

 I guess this is what happens to old cacti.

 I found it when I wandered away from the road a bit behind a hill.

Lizard alert! Another Cododo, or Aruba Whiptail Lizard. They were ALL over the place! Ellie was very good about braking for lizards, so either we could see them better, or to avoid squishing them in the road! 

A candy cactus on a hilltop fascinated  me, deep down I really wanted to touch it, but common sense thankfully prevailed and I kept my hands to myself!





Sleeping Policeman Slows Down Tourists!

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.....

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!