Seven Hours or Seven Days: THE Essential Aruba Itineraries
Jul 28 '03
The Bottom Line Have fun! See the sights! But don't forget to plan enough time for laying around the beach sipping cool margaritas!
Today's weather forecast for Aruba: Nice! Warm temperatures under clear skies with a steady breeze most of the day.
It doesn't matter what day today is, or what season of the year it might be back at home, on Aruba, it is always a warm summer day and the weather is always good. Even if the Weather Channel web site tells you the forecast for Aruba is rain, it probably isn't. Or if it is, it will rain for a few minutes before the clouds break giving you yet another beautiful day. It's never cold, and it's too far south to ever have to worry about hurricanes or tropical storms.
Naturally, that means it's always a perfect time to be outside enjoying the glorious beaches and the warm tropical waters. Anything else you might do is pure gravy. That said, here are the things that I think should be the priorities for anyone visiting Aruba. If you've just got a day, or even just a long weekend, you might consider never going beyond the first or second recommendation. If you've got a week or more, do 'em all!
1. Lay on the Beach:
If there is one no-brainer recommendation to make to anyone visiting Aruba, it's to just chill out in a hammock on the beach, sipping cool margaritas and letting the cares of the world slide away as you do some tan maintenance, lose yourself in a cheap romance novel, or practice your backstroke in the gentle warm waters that lie along some of the world's most stunningly beautiful beaches.
The best beach on Aruba is Eagle Beach, so if you only have a short time on the island, just stay on Eagle Beach or get there by whatever means necessary and don't waste your time with second best. If you have a week or more, by all means explore and convince yourself that Eagle Beach is, indeed, the best beach on the island. Even if you're staying longer than a week, there would be nothing wrong with never getting beyond this first vital itinerary item.
Who knows? You could even find your own favorite slice of sun drenched sand...
2. Experience the Underwater World:
I lied. There is a second no-brainer recommendation that everyone should try to do: be sure to do something that lets you witness first-hand the incredible wealth of sea life and natural beauty that lies just below the ocean's surface in the Caribbean's underwater realm. If you're a scuba diver, it might be hard to get you to do anything other than experience this world, but you don't have to have a diving certificate tucked in your wallet to at least get a taste for what lies below.
There are plenty of shallow areas where snorkling is excellent, and there are boat tours that will take you out to some of the easier off-shore points of interest so that you can don your mask and take a peek under the waves.
If even snorkling is more activity than you like, there are two more options: the glass-bottom boat tours and the submarine Atlantis. Of these, the submarine is closest to giving you the diving experience without the wet suit. The submarine goes down to a maximum depth of about 150 feet. Some of the glass-bottom boats on Aruba deliver more bang for the buck than the basic glass-bottom boats that you find in dozens of other seaside resorts -- that's because some of the boats have observation areas down below the waterline.
3. Do a Short Island Tour:
No, the tour companies aren't giving me a kickback to recommend their tours. It's just that if I'm going to be hanging out someplace for a little while, I like to get my bearings quickly. A good way to do this is to take a short tour of the island within the first day or so of your arrival. This at least gives you a flavor of the place, lets you see the lay of the land, and helps you get a better feel for which things are worth exploring in more depth, and which are overhyped or maybe just not your speed. A typical intro tour takes about 4 hours and costs $32 to $40. Some of the air-hotel packages that you can get through the discount tour companies and travel agencies actually include a tour as part of their packages, in which case this too becomes a no-brainer.
Information about basic island tours (and lots of specialty tours) is available at the tour desks in most hotels, or you can look for them on the web (and maybe even book ahead of time -- a good idea if your flight is coming in late in the day and you want a tour the morning of the first day). Some of the tour operators on the web include:
* ABC Tours (www.abcaruba.com)
* Aruba Adventures (www.arubaadventures.com)
* De Palm Tours (www.depalm.com)
* WIX Tours (www.wixtours.com)
4. Visit the Backcountry of Arikok National Park:
A large chunk of the island's 70 square miles worth of land mass is dedicated to open lands in the Arikok National Park, which alone counts for more than 2,000 acres. Most of that parkland is rugged desert honeycombed with caves and lined with miles of rugged seashore. The park is where you'll find the Natural Pool and caves with indigenous drawings on the wall. There are lots of ways into the park, and you could visit much of it on your own if you have a rental car. There are also horseback riding trips into the park, and some of the jeep tours take you into the park (see the tour operator web sites that I listed above for info on what each type of tour includes).
Some Things You Can Safely Skip...
By all means drive up to the north end of the island and check out the scenery, but I wouldn't spend much time there. There are some very cool things to see, including the rusted hulk of the German freighter Antilles, which lies just offshore. The dunes on the northern point are pretty cool, though signs advise you not to drive your vehicles on them. The oddly named California Lighthouse earned its moniker because the luxury liner California (a ship that earned its fame not for what it did, but for what it didn't do -- not answering the Titanic's distress signal) sank just off the point -- it's one of dozens of shipwrecks that the island's myriad dive guides might visit.
If you have your heart set on going up into the lighthouse, you can save yourself the drive -- it's closed. The view from the parking lot is pretty good though, and there's a restaurant here called Faro Blanco that's known more for its vistas than its entrees.
Neither the Hooiberg nor Casibari struck me as particularly exciting. Neither did the Ayo rocks. None are particularly easy to reach. I'd skip them and spend the time out on the water...
I thought the idea of a Butterfly Farm was kind of cool, but I was put off by the $12 admission charge -- that's just too high for what I see as a 15-minute diversion. If you're into it, it's located right around the point where Eagle Beach becomes Palm Beach (or is it the other way around?)
Strolling through Oranjestad is pleasantly interesting, but I wouldn't worry too much about planning out an itinerary of things to see -- just stroll around let what happens happen. There are a couple of museums downtown, but they aren't really worth going far out of your way to see. Ditto with the "historical" attractions and ditto with government buildings. If you're passing by and they're open, by all means, stop in and see what's what, but I'll bet you a sand dollar that you don't find any single attraction in Oranjestad particularly exciting. As a whole, Oranjestad is a cool little city, but taken individually, nothing there really inspires passion in me.
I wasn't particularly excited about the South end of the island either, especially the town of San Nicolas. The town is mostly a working class community of oil workers. There's not much to see or do for a tourist, unless you want to visit the sleazy bars, of which the town has literally dozens. When it comes to sleaze, San Nicolas has few rivals: cheap beer, cheap women (all of whom are Columbian, none of whom speak a word of English), total grunge, and a constant feeling that danger is never too far off. There are people who would like San Nicolas, but I doubt that most epinions readers fall into that category (well, except for rugged individualists like JAMES23).
The one and only bar in San Nicolas that really caters to tourists is the overhyped Charlies Bar. Yes, it's fairly beat and mellow. Yes, the walls are covered with clutter -- and you can add your own clutter to the pile, if you wish. But the beers are expensive and so is the food, particularly for a place of otherwise unpretentious aspirations. I visited Charlies once -- had to do it -- but I probably won't stop in again next time I visit Aruba.
The beaches on the south end of the island aren't worth the hassle of getting here and it's basically a waste of vacation time to venture much south of Oranjestad.
Similarly, there's no real reason to visit the town of Santa Cruz, other than to pass through on your way into Arikok National Park.
Anyway, that's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it. Have fun in Aruba!
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