Monday, February 11
Our port
for today is Oranjestad on the island of Aruba.
We docked at 8:00, but Val and I slept in as we didn't have anything
planned for the day except to walk into town and explore the town.
Aruba is the western most of the ABC islands and like Curacao, it is a sovereign state in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It covers an area of 69 square miles and has a population of 105,000. The capital and largest city is Oranjestad where we are docked today.
 |
| For the last time, the location of the ABC Islands in the Caribbean. |
We decided
to go ashore a little before 11:00 and when we got off the ship and walked off
the pier we ran a gauntlet of taxis, buses and tour guides all offering
to show us the island. We just kept
walking and entered into the main part of town.
As expected it was quite touristy and not as picturesque as some of the
other places we’ve been on this trip.
Val’s new knee was bothering her this morning and we really didn’t have
much interest in browsing in the numerous shops, so we decided to make it a
short visit.
 |
| We can't judge Aruba as we were only in Oranjestad today, and we didn't find the city very interesting so hence, not many pictures. |
We did have one thing we
wanted to do before returning to the ship and that was to buy some water. Bottled water is very expensive on the ship
so we are always looking for water when we are in port. So far on this cruise we haven't found any at a reasonable price. I think the vendors
raise their prices when the cruise ships are in port as
many people buy water to bring back to the ship. We found a supermarket and were happy to see
water at a reasonable price. Not as
cheap as we buy at home, but less than a tenth of what we would have to pay on
the ship. We bought a case and Val
bought some loose ones to carry back to the ship. They didn’t seem very heavy when we left the
store, but by the time we got to the ship they seemed very heavy, we were glad
to get back and dump our load.
One
fortuitous thing about our trip happened, though. We were walking down the street and someone
was taking a picture, so being a fellow photographer, I stopped so I didn’t walk in front of him and
interfere with his shot. He thanked me
and noticed I had a Nikon camera like him.
We talked cameras for a bit and then Val asked him if he and his wife
might be interested in joining us on a photo tour we had booked in Manaus,
Brazil. We had been looking, with no luck,
for someone to join us. Our new photography friend seemed interested so we exchanged room
numbers and we will contact them as the tour grows closer. They are Tony and Evelyn and seemed very nice
so we hope they join us.
Back on the
ship and in the nice cool air conditioning, we relaxed for a short time and then
headed for lunch in the Lido. After
lunch, we read for a while and then Val was off to her afternoon trivia. I used the time as I usually do, to catch-up with the blog. When Val returned, we
took a walk around the ship and then returned to spend the rest of the
afternoon relaxing and reading.
We did our
usual dinner routine of trivia, dinner and the casino. Because we didn’t leave Aruba until 9:00, the
casino didn’t open until 9:30 and we went out to the Lido deck after dinner and
watched us sail away in the warm and balmy evening. We spent quite a bit of time in the casino
tonight, and neither of us won, but we did get to play for quite a while. I am continuing to stay even for the trip,
but I know that will change at some point.
We didn’t get back to our room until after 11:00, but that didn’t matter
as tomorrow is a sea day and we can sleep as long as we want.
No comments:
Post a Comment