Aruba

by Frank Bredell

Lovers of classical music delight in debating which single recording they would take along to a desert island. I could never limit my musical taste that much, but choosing the desert island would be very easy: Aruba.

When I first saw the island from the air, I must admit that I didn’t like it. It seemed to be nothing but a sparsely inhabited wasteland of scrub vegetation, with a smattering of cacti and a palm tree here and there. The small airport was windswept—I’d been warned about Aruba’s constant wind—and surrounded by an eyesore of billboards. Oh, well, our charter flight home was two weeks off, so we might as well make the best of it, I thought.

A 15-minute taxi ride deposited us at our hotel, one of more than two dozen stretching along the island’s Western shore. And that was when I began to fall in love with Aruba. It wasn’t a wasteland any more, but an Eden of lush, irrigated tropical vegetation alongside an apparently endless white-sand beach dotted with welcoming grass-roofed cabanas and lounge chairs. The ocean was almost as calm as a small inland lake, little kids splashing contentedly at the water’s edge while their parents lolled on nearby beach chairs or drifted lazily on rubber rafts.

Beach beauties strolled along the glistening sand. While topless swim attire is not permitted on the beach, there seemed to be only a fine line between an acceptable swimsuit and none at all.

Aruba lies fewer than 40 miles off the coast of Venezuela, and was discovered by the Spanish in 1499. It looked like a useless desert, so they never colonized it. The Dutch took possession in 1634 after an 80-year war with Spain, but the island was still neglected until gold was discovered in 1825. You can guess what happened then. However, the gold mine petered out in 1916, so the islanders turned to growing aloe, which is used in cosmetics and suntan lotions.

In the 1930’s, a refinery was built to process Venezuelan oil, and the island’s population grew sharply. The refinery closed in 1985, but by then the islanders had discovered tourism. How could they miss? The sun shines almost every day, the temperature hovers around 80 all day and a gentle wind cools the white sand of the beaches so you can walk barefoot in comfort even at high noon. Don’t forget your suntan lotion, though. That sun is fierce, even though it may not feel like it.

While 11 of the hotels along what is known as Palm Beach have opened casinos, they are small, quiet and unobtrusive. Gambling is not the principal attraction of Aruba. The beach is, with its large array of watersports. Around our hotel, for example, the activities available included boat rentals, sailing, scuba diving, snorkeling, windsurfing, tennis and, of course, swimming in the warm sea and enjoying the sunny beach.

If I’d been interested I could also have gone deep-sea fishing, ridden in a glass-bottom boat, had lessons in snorkeling and scuba diving, cruised on a catamaran, taken a ride on a submarine, gone on a bus tour of the island or played golf on a new 18-hole course designed by Robert Trent Jones. Along the golf course, the wildlife attractions are said to include green parakeets, burrowing owls and other exotic birds, lizards, salamanders and wild burros. Nearby is the ruin of a lighthouse named for the offshore wreck the ship California.

On the southern end of the island is another golf course of quite a different type. The "greens" are made of sand, and the hazards include the strong ever-present winds and wandering goats.

I can’t say I saw any of these things; I was too busy swimming, lounging, patrolling the beach, reading long-neglected books and sipping on drinks brought to my chair whenever I beckoned a nearby waiter. Total bliss.

Arubans call the place "one happy island," the auto license plates carrying that slogan. On my first visit to the island, I quickly discovered the hospitality of the locals. Coming out of church one Sunday evening (services are at night when the beach has lost its allure), my wife and I were faced with about a half-mile walk along dark country roads to our hotel. Before we so much as set foot outside the church, however, two parishioners offered us a ride. They turned out to be a law student and his mother, both of whom had spotted us as strangers who might appreciate a bit of Aruban hospitality.

Going "downtown" is an experience not to be missed. The main city of the island of Aruba is Oranjestad. I was amazed that its main street is all of ten-feet wide, traffic moving at a crawl. When you go to town, it is best to take a bus or cab from your hotel and save the frustration of trying to get anywhere quickly or trying to park.

Many of the buildings are of Dutch design, tall and colorful with carved wooden doors and traditional Dutch tiles. Such products from Holland as cheese and chocolate are ubiquitous; jewelry and imported goods of all kinds abound. There are a variety of stores, but prices aren’t as low as they are on many other Caribbean islands. There are a few places that sell local crafts, but the best souvenir to take home is a suntan.

Museum visitors will probably decide they are in the wrong place, but there is an archaeological museum, a display of the island’s Spanish and Dutch history and a museum showing historic coins. Oranjestad is no metropolis, but all the same, a trip through it on foot is fun.

On my second visit to Aruba, I decided to see what lay beyond the beaches and town, so I rented a car for a few hours. The island is fewer than 20 miles long and only six miles across at its widest point. You can easily explore all of it in a day, pausing at a scenic spot for a picnic or dropping in at one of the restaurants that are at some distance from the hotels.

The hotel strip on the south and west coasts of Aruba has pristine white-sand beaches, calm blue seas, clear water and a constant light breeze. The northern coast, on the Atlantic Ocean, is quite a different matter—the shore is rugged, rocky and wild. Wind-tossed seas lash at the land and have carved away an assortment of caves and whirlpools. Teenage local boys challenge the surf there, but no one with a sound mind does.

At one place along the Atlantic coast is a natural bridge 25 feet above the sea and spanning about a hundred feet of rock-strewn water. The bridge was carved from solid coral by centuries of pounding surf. The Aruba Tourist Board claims it is the Caribbean area’s highest and most dramatic coral structure.

Roads along the north coast are two lanes wide at best, and in some place a four-wheel-drive vehicle might not be out of place. There is little traffic, since there is hardly anywhere to go; nevertheless, it is easy to get lost. Many roads go nowhere and just end in the midst of a wasteland. Direction signs are sparse.

Here and there are houses surrounded by cactus hedges (to keep out what?) amidst wide-open fields of whatever low bushes will grow in the arid landscape. Annual rainfall in Aruba is about 20 inches, which means that anyone who plans a garden party is almost certain of having no rain interfere with it. During this two-week vacation, it rained twice, but for only a few seconds each time. We never bothered to leave the beach.

One of the most interesting varieties of trees on Aruba is the divi-divi. They grow about seven- to nine-feet high, then get caught in the tradewinds and grow another 10 to 20 feet horizontally, always pointing to the southwest.

In the approximate center of the island is Arikok National Park, which has some animal species that are found only in Aruba. These include a couple varieties of snakes, a lizard and two species of birds. In the park are also ancient Arawak Indian drawings, remains of gold mines and some old farm buildings. A couple of low hills are the highest places in Aruba. The park and other protected land takes in a quarter of the island, the part where nobody wants to build a hotel anyway.

Faced with 250- percent growth in the number of visitors in the past 15 years, the Aruban government has launched an effort to keep large parts of the island primitive to limit the huge drain on its scarce resources.

Enough sightseeing, you say. Where and what do we eat? Restaurants are scattered throughout the island, helping the taxi business flourish. Seafood is a staple at most of the restaurants. The Driftwood in Oranjestad says its fish are caught daily by the owner. Besides the typical seafood places, some restaurants specialize in Belgian-French, German, Italian and Japanese cuisine. Beef is likely to come from Argentina and is a specialty at El Gaucho.

I liked some restaurants as much for their names as their food, which was excellent in all respects. We looked in at Papiamento, Twinklebones, the Old Cunucu House and Boonoonoonoos. Prices were about what we would pay at home. A ten-percent service charge is usually part of the bill.

Since hardly anything grows on the island, most food is imported. Water is from the sea—desalinated, of course—and is pure and tasty everywhere. Because of Aruba’s history, there are many Dutch influences, ranging from blue china on the tables to beers from Holland on many menus. Aruba has its own currency, but you’re not likely to see any of it as the majority of transactions are in American dollars.

Like any resort destination, Aruba plans a number of activities every year to keep the tourists and locals amused. The biggest celebration is Carnival, just before Lent, but its parade and other activities seemed to me to be more oriented toward Arubans than outsiders.

Every Tuesday all year there is a Bonbini Festival featuring arts, crafts, local food and dancing in Fort Zoulman in Oranjestad. On Thursdays, there is a similar festival at St. Nicolas, the town on the south end of the island. There are drag races in March, a bartender’s contest as well as bowling and golf tournaments in April, drag races and a kite festival in May and a windsurfing competition in June (they certainly have the wind for the kites and sails.) There is also a cook-off amongst chefs, a triathlon, music festivals and a bunch of competitions in sea sports every year.

Frank Bredell was a former newpaper editor, in Detroit and Buffalo, and public-relations counselor. Now mostly retired, he recently completed his first book, a memoir of his childhood, and writes journals about his world travels.