In order to be out of the USA for a complete month we're staying a few extra days in Aruba. I think we've both had enough of restaurant food and hotel rooms and would just as soon be home in SoCal but we're here for another four nights.
Aruba is another of the ABC islands the other two being Bonaire and Curacao. The legal inhabitants of these islands are DUTCH citizens.
Makes you wonder why Canada can't smarten up and get a Caribbean island for us to go to and not have to worry about staying outside of Canada too long and losing health care or being considered non-residents... Just invade some island Harper..!!!
Aruba is a very flat island with not much to recomend (IMO) other than the beach. Tourism makes up just about all the economy.
Some shots:
So we're at the Mariott and it's OK - we moved from the 2nd floor up to the 7th on the 2nd day. Big increase. WTF...it's only money!!
The view is better anyway.
The beach is nice too. Nice white sand, warm water, very much like Mexico and the Mayan Riviera - no toppless tough. Bugger!! And it's certainly not an all-inclusive. $8.00 US for a can of Heinekin. Bugger!!
Lots of lizards as well.
Another shot of the beach from waayyyyyy down at the far end. The hotel pretty much dead-centre is the Ritz Carlton (a brown hotel) and we're staying just to the right of it (the white blob).
While we were here it rained often during the day. It doesn't rain here we were told but it really came down a couple times. You can see how dark it is in the distance. It would only rain for a few minutes though and it's warm when it's raining so it was no big deal.
The view of the adult pool from our room.
And a final Caribbean sunset.
