Aruba

12/16/2023 Aruba started off stupidly. I had booked a tour, but I couldn't find the person who was supposed to pick me up anywhere. The information desk was not manned. So I waited for about an hour at the place where the buses usually let their customers board.

With the help of a taxi driver, I was able to reach the tour operator by phone: someone would have been there, I would have waited in the wrong place, it was my fault. The taxi driver assured me that she had not seen anyone from the company, although she had been waiting before my ship arrived. Well then. I later realized that there are robbers in Aruba when I bought a cable.

But first I hired the helpful taxi driver to drive me around the island for an hour. There are beautiful beaches and huge hotel castles; to me everything seemed as artificial as Disneyland.

I had booked a bus trip through Royal Caribbean for the afternoon. The organization worked despite the large crowds. The bus took us to the wild, pristine part of Aruba, to a collapsed "natural bridge" and an abandoned gold mine. Unfortunately it was now raining heavily and when we returned to Oranjestad some of the streets there looked like Venetian canals.

At dinner I received a birthday serenade and a piece of birthday cake. Sweet!