Thursday, May 25, 1995 - Aruba

After breakfast, I walked to the grocery store to get some chicken for supper. The grocery store was closed. So was the next grocery store. So were the drugstores, banks, clothing stores, jewelry stores -- the whole town was locked up tight as a drum. I concluded this must be a holiday, but what holiday? Several hours later, we found out it's Ascension Day. The Arubans take their holidays seriously. After lunch, we rode the motor launch to Sonesta's island. That was fun! The launch has about 400 horsepower and really plows through the water. We strolled around the island, which contains about 70 acres, only a small portion of which is developed. There are two nice beaches. (The brochure says six beaches, but that's stretching it a bit.) The sand is white and soft yet firmly packed, and there are paved paths leading to the gym and tennis court. There are lots and lots of lounge chairs on the beaches. On a clear day, you can see Venezuela, only 15 miles away. We relaxed in a hammock for a while and then went for a good swim in the pale blue water. The water is cool enough to be refreshing but not cold enough to be chilling. The air is a tad warmer, so you feel great both in the water and out of it. There's a small breakwater across the outside of the swim area, so you don't get large waves, but there's enough wave action to float you up and down. Roy put on his snorkel mask and flippers and swam out to the breakwater to look at the fish, but I just swam and floated and enjoyed. When we came out of the water, we took showers in the nice shower rooms. The shower water was one temperature, and that wasn't hot. But it wasn't cold, either; it was the ambient temperature, which was pleasant. Then we relaxed on lounge chairs on the beach. We felt like millionaires. All the time and money and effort to get here are finally paying off. When we were waiting for the return boat, we saw a fat iguana climbing up a rock, a bright green lizard resting in the sun, and a striped water-snake in the water. In the evening, there was a festival half a block from the boat. Several of the leading restaurants were selling samples of their specialties. I'd have liked to try some of them, but just then the live band began playing so loud I couldn't stand it and had to leave. Why do they have to crank the speakers up so loud? I've never been able to tolerate loud noise. We went over to a green and white inflated tent that houses, of all things, an ice-skating rink! We went inside and looked at it. There weren't many people skating, but it really was an ice-skating rink. There were also a lot of game machines and more loud music, so we left and wandered over to Sonesta Suites. They were serving dinner by the pool and live music was playing. I gave up and returned to the boat, but Roy continued wandering around. The band at the festival was still playing outrageously loud, almost completely drowning out Jean-Baptiste at Mamma Mia. I thought I'd have a hard time getting to sleep, but I must have been very sleepy, because I conked out almost immediately.