10 miles walked today

We went to bed early and slept about 10 hours. We were both up by 7am and after breakfast we headed out on a walk to downtown Oranjestad. First we walked to the cruise port.

The ships were docked and some people were coming out for their shore excursions. There were lots of locals standing around trying to sell things to the cruise ship travelers including rides to the beach. We had about 10 people ask us “Wanna go to the beach?”

Mom and I got a picture with the “I love Aruba” sign.

Most shops weren’t open yet but we walked around enjoying the architecture and photo ops.

Then we decided to walk 45 minutes to the aloe factory. It was 83 degrees and sunny and the walk was definitely not tourist-friendly but we got there. The factory had a great tour which included a demonstration on aloe harvesting.

Nole and the kids got me a nice camera for my birthday and I decided to take it out with us today and take some pictures.

We took a cab back to Oranjestad where the cabbie dropped us in front of a restaurant he recommended. The restaurant was really expensive and seemed too touristy so we headed down the road to another place I found on Google. There are a few blocks where most of the cruise tourists hang out and all the best and best priced restaurants were outside of this area. We found a dutch place called Bistro de Suikertuin.

The food was delicious! Then we went back to our Airbnb and took a dip in the pool. That seems like it might be enough action for one day but no, we were not done! We went back downtown and hopped on a bus to go to Palm Beach.

We checked out the Bubali Bird Sanctuary. There were some ducks, finches and egrets to see there as well as some lizards.

The coolest thing we saw was an Aruban Whiptail lizard. I got a picture of it but it wasn’t close enough to show how colorful it was so I included some Google images too.

We hopped the bus back after checking out the Hilton in Palm Beach. They have a parrot garden which we will come back to see another day. I think we should also sneak into their pool because it looks amazing. We got back on the bus and went back to Oranjestad where we walked back to the Airbnb. Mom made us spaghetti for dinner while I calculated our miles walked today–10 miles in all! We also got a little sunburn but not too bad considering we spent about 6 hours outside.