Alto Vista Chapel

This picturesque Catholic chapel was built in 1952 replacing the original chapel built in the 1750!

Alto Vista Chapel is on the north side of Aruba and is quite small but very quiet, the only noise emanates from the crashing waves below, and our jeep.

I would have loved to get out and explore the interior of this quaint church, but time did not allow for our exit.

Also, the road leading up to the chapel was marked by these striking stations of the cross.

Natural Bridge and Bushiribana Gold Mill Ruins

After the excitement of the Ostrich Farm, it was on to the "natural bridge". Basically a strip of rock that stretches out over the water below.

Here's the natural bridge that originally attracted folks to this section on the north side of the island, but it collapsed a few years ago.

All over the island, people stack stones on top of stones and then make a wish. So, I guess you might call them wishing stacks!

More wishing stacks.

Next stop was the ruins of the Bushiribana Gold Mill. It was built in 1872 by the Aruba Island Gold Mining Company LTD as a place to smelt gold. 95 % of the original building is still standing.

Bushiribana never had an actual roof. It was intentionally left off as to allow the fumes and heat to exit the smelter and also to discourage pirates as it looked like an abandoned collapsed fort.

Some 3000 + pounds of pure gold was sent back to the Dutch government as a result of the smelting that was done here.

Snorkeling at Baby Beach With ABC Jeep Tours

The next stop on our all day Jeep Tour with ABC was Baby Beach. This was the best place by far we found to snorkel! Strangely enough, right next to the oil refinery!

There were quite a few folks there, but it wasn't overly crowded. The water was calm, little wave action and most parts were less than 10-15 feet deep. The water was the clearest we had seen the whole trip and what we imagined Aruba would be like!

I found this pretty blue colored species of coral! I didn't know coral could be blue!








Then I started to chase all the little fishies!

As did everyone else!

And then I came face to face with a spotted trunk fish! How cool! I had never seen one before and their shape is just....odd! Click on the photo to enlarge, but the back end is like a normal fish! I think in some other shots, there are more trunk fish at different angles.

Ah, near the bottom is the side view of the trunk fish, it doesn't look quite as odd from the side!

Swam right into a huge school of Sargent Major's!

All too soon we were summoned to come ashore. Time to load back into the Jeeps and get some lunch back by Arikok. The sign at the road announced "Best Pizza". Ironically we had chicken legs, ribs, rice and beans!

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!

In Search of... the Seroe Coronado Lighthouse

After a wonderful afternoon at Arikok National Park, we decided to look for some other sights on the eastern side of Aruba. Next "stop" was Frenchman's Pass. A scenic tree lined area where legend has it some Frenchmen tried to invade Aruba but were met by some hostile natives. The natives were driven back and went into hiding where the Frenchmen found them in a cave and then proceeded to set the cave entrance on fire, killing the natives. Ellie stopped the car and as I attempted to hop out, we were chastised by a native for stopping in such a DANGEROUS stretch of road! Many tourists have been killed here by crazy drivers! But yet it was SAFE for him to pull alongside  of us where someone could hit him head on?!

So, onward we went. We drove through some quaint little

towns with some interesting signs that made us laugh (perhaps I'll dedicate a post to those later!) and eventually drove past a wind farm and the penitentary. We wound up at Bachelor's Beach and watched a few folks kite surf for a while. The water was quite rough and windy, but perfect for them! Now the lighthouse, Seroe Coronado would definitely have to be near, right?

We took a left at the Valero Oil refinery and wound up on a bluff overlooking the rocky coast. We decided it might be a nice spot for a short hike.... It was, although it was horribly hot, the winds were quite strong, so it took the edge off a bit! This looks like at one time was a natural bridge that eventually collapsed.

On the way back to the car I was pretty excited to see this little fellow! Not sure what kind of lizard it was, but was rather friendly and wasn't at all disturbed and let me get within a few inches of him! Not at all skiddish like the Whiptail ones!

Even though it's clearly shown on the map we hadn't been able to locate it ourselves, we were continually  directed to the California lighthouse at the WEST end of Aruba. We made one last effort to ask someone....persistance paid off! They knew RIGHT were it was! They pointed a few hundred feet away..... FOLKS! This structure is NOT a "lighthouse" and it should NOT be advertised (especially on a tourist map) as such. Call it a range light, beacon, light in a box, whathaveyou, but do NOT, for Pete's sake, call it a lighthouse!

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!