Day 72 Aruba

July 30

Due to an approaching tropical storm, our scheduled port of Antigua was cancelled. Lucky for us, we went to visit beautiful Aruba instead.

Aruba is located in the southern Caribbean, and lies north of Venezuela and east of Colombia. 

We took a bus to Palm Beach Pier, followed by a ferry transfer to the Seaworld Explorer for a narrated tour of the ship wreck Antilla. After our little semi-sub ride, we visited the California Lighthouse, followed by a trip to Aruba's rugged north coast, to view the Baby Natural Bridge and the collapsed Natural Bridge. The last stop in our guided tour was the Casibari rock formations, where we had a chance to view the amazing landscape. 

When our tour concluded, we had lunch in the buffet and then braved the heat to go out and about on our own.

Aruba has been one of my favourite destinations. If I was given a second day here, I would be beaching it up.

View of the Marina and L.G Smith Blvd, in the capital Oranjestad.

Sea Princess.

Palm Pier, has a couple of stores and a bar with excellent views of Palm Beach.

Palm Pier Bar.

One of the stores at Palm Pier.

Palm Beach. We were told that the white sand is Parrotfish poop. That's a lot of poop.

View of Palm Beach from the Pier.

Riu Palace Hotel

Snorkelling tours at the Antilla Shipwreck.

The Seaworld Explorer. The semi-sub is a surface vessel where you sit five feet below the waterline.

The Antilla. A 400 foot WWII German freighter that was sunk off the coast of Aruba.

Wreck of the Antilla, now home to many kinds of exotic sea life.

Snorkeler. Play the Jaws theme music.

A scuba diver fish, this is a big one.

California Lighthouse. Named after the steamship Califonia which crashed and sank off the coast of Aruba in 1891.

Panoramic views of the west coast from the California Lighhouse.

Following is a series of pictures taken from the bus.

View from bus. 

View from bus.

View from bus.

View from bus.

The Baby Natural Bridge on Aruba's north coast, carved by the surf from solid coral and limestone.

The Natural Bridge collapsed in 2005.

The collapsed Natural Bridge.

Wouldn't want to get about with bare feet here.

Casibari Rock Formations. From here you can view the stunning landscape formed by diorite boulders, some the size of small houses.

Arawak Indians would visit the Casibari Rock Formations to draw on the massive rocks and listen for incoming thunderstorms.

The locals call this bird a banana bird. I think it is a yellow finch.

View from the highest point at the Casibari Rock Formations.

You can go for a little nature walk on the site to see the boulders and various cacti.

This area has been described as "Holland meets Disney Fantasia"

There are jewelry shops everywhere.

A cafe that has a cow, car and dinosaur on the roof.

On our walk we stumbled upon this area.

There are lizards everywhere in Aruba.

Tomorrow we arrive at Curaçao.