Island Tour

One of our favorite things to do when visiting a new place is to take an island tour. Aruba is known for their jeep tours which takes you off roading, but the girls weren't old enough. Instead, the concierge recommended a private tour with a taxi cab. They found a local who was born & raised there, Monty & he was wonderful! If anyone goes to visit Aruba, I will recommend him. He even brought a car seat for Sophie.

 

Bryan & I are boring & we love to learn about the history, government, health insurance, etc. We ask a ton of questions & try to learn as much as we can, but we also enjoy the road trip. I think we spent about 4 1/2 hours with him & we saw most of the island. I can't remember exactly, but I think the island is basically 6 miles wide & 19 miles long. Mostly flat & dry:

 

See, I am not exaggerating! There were cactus all over the island & we couldn't help but take a picture with one:

 

 

This was at the golf course. Bryan wanted to check it out so we drove around the neighborhood to check out the real estate & then we walked around part of the course:

 

 

It was probably the ugliest golf course I have ever seen but Bryan said the greens were in pretty good shape & he enjoyed playing it. He went a few days later & had the sunrise tee time at 7:00 in the morning. He saw a bunch of random goats all over the course. I think he really liked the course & said he wouldn't mind buying a house in there with a pool with an ocean view. Yeah right, buddy!

 

Our first stop was actually at the lighthouse:

 

 

This is on the edge of the island, not far from our hotel. They technically told us we could run to the light house which was a few miles away via a dirt road, but I never ventured this far out.

 

 

As you can see, the lighthouse was built in 1913. Pretty interesting to see how close the water used to come to the lighthouse & how far away it is now.

 

Next stop, an old chapel:

 

 

It was the cutest little thing. Very tiny, but it had an amphitheater in the front with additional seating outside. It's kind of built up a little higher so it had good views of the island all around. Since we had Monty with us, he wanted to take family pictures every where we went, so we obliged:

 

 

The island is mostly Catholic & this is a Catholic chapel built in 1750:

 

 

Close to the chapel is:

 

 

which is basically their version of a zoo. They have a resident who built this on his property & takes care of all of the animals. The girls had a blast running around & feeding everyone:

 

 

Monty even enjoyed the experience:

 

 

He was really good with the girls & helped them feed the animals when they were scared.

 

We finally made it to the other side of the island which I think is the Atlantic Ocean. Our resort was on the Caribbean Sea & this side was much different:

 

 

Very rough with huge, crashing waves. Apparently no one gets in the water on this side of the island. If you can tell from the picture, a lot of the rock was black because it is lava stone. Aruba was formed from a volcano.

 

 

It definitely felt isolating being over here, but it's still pretty in a different way. One of their biggest tourist attraction is called the Natural Bridge:

 

 

I didn't get a good picture of the entire thing, but it's basically exactly what it sounds like - a natural bridge that extends from one side to the other with water underneath. I took stayed back & took pictures while they walked it. Sadie was a little scared because the waves were crashing so loudly & she was afraid they were going to fall in. She loves the ocean but if definitely scared her here!

 

On our way back to the resort, Monty took us to lunch at a local dive, which was awesome. The best shrimp I had on the island! He also took us to the Aruba signs to take pictures there & he took me to the Hard Rock. I started collecting pins from Hard Rock when I was younger & I try to pick one up everywhere we travel. He was so great that we called him again to take us to the airport. Hopefully we will look him up if we ever go back:

 

 

After our tour, we loaded the girls up in their stroller & headed down the boardwalk. I spotted a swing set & playground at one of the other hotels while I ran one morning & thought it would be a fun surprise:

 

 

The girls never pass up an opportunity to swing! And it's even more fun while staring at the ocean :)

 

We finished the evening by shopping along the strip:

 

 

We found some cute necklaces made out of seashells that had a S on them so we got a purple one for Sadie & a pink one for Sophie. Sadie was so proud & she wore it the rest of our trip & showed everyone!

 

It was a fun day & it was our only day away from the beach & the pool. The rest of our trip was spent swimming & splashing around, but I'm so glad we got to experience Aruban life from a local perspective.