9 miles walked today

Today was our planned day to visit the Palm Beach area. For breakfast I had tres leches cake which I bought from the restaurant last night.

Then we took the bus to the butterfly farm which is right outside of Palm Beach.

We got there about a half hour before they opened and the owner (?) talked to us for most of that time, telling us about the farms (there are a total of 4 in the Caribbean), monarch migration, his youth in Canada etc. The butterflies were beautiful, of course, and there was a nice tour as well.

After leaving the butterfly farm we went to a COVID testing place. Unfortunately, you needed your passport (why didn’t we think of that?) so we had to take the bus back to the Airbnb to get those. When we took the bus back to Palm Beach, it was almost time for the bird meet and greet at the Hilton so we went there first.

The Hilton had a COVID testing site but it closed early because they didn’t have any scheduled appointments so the Hilton front desk sent us over to a mall area about a mile away. We still had the option of going back to the original place (the one we left because we didn’t have our passports) but this new site was more convenient because we were getting hungry and it was near restaurants. We found the testing site and interestingly, they did not require a passport and their test was $35 each (the other was $50 each). Bonus! We only need rapid tests to return and we got our results right after lunch–negative!

Then Mom and I went back to the Hilton and sat by their pool for a few hours. We have learned that it is best to not try and walk around between about 1pm and 4pm. It’s too hot and there is almost no shade. After our siesta at the pool we shared a pizza for dinner and walked around Palm Beach.

Today was a holiday in Aruba similar to American Independence Day Calle Dia di Betico and it was celebrated with many islanders visiting with family and driving around with Aruban flags waving. Many businesses were closed but around Palm Beach, most things were open for the tourists. Below is the man that the day is named after, Betico Croes

I really wanted to see some live music but none of that started until after 8. We decided on the piano bar where the piano player was starting at 8:30. We walked around and then sat on the beach for a while before finding a seat at the piano bar before the show.

We grabbed a bus back and walked back to our Airbnb. It was the latest we had been out this whole trip–we got home about 10pm. Tomorrow we go home. It was a wonderful vacation and great spending a lot of time with my mom.