Day 1
"Vacation is when you've nothing to do, and all day to do it."
We arrived after 3:30 in the afternoon. Coming from the cool of San Francisco at midnight, and hours on end in air conditioned airplanes and airports, the heat and humidity of Aruba was the first thing we both noticed. I had been bracing for it since the first waves of heat surprised me while departing from the airplace in Charlotte, North Carolina. If it is this hot here, how will the Carribean feel, I wondered. Because I was mentally prepared for it — nervous really — I was plesantly surprised to find I'd experienced worse heat and humidity in Boston and New York in August. The relief turned into joy and giddiness as I contemplated the long flights overnight and halfway through the day. We were half crased with mild sleep exhaustion mixed with the euphoria that comes with teh first moments of a vacation. I felt like the final bell of high school just rang, and summer vacation was here.
At this point we were spent for conversation. We exchanged silly grins and short bursts of repetitive thoughts: Babes, we're here! Aruba! I can't believe it! We're really here! We carried the feelings and our carry-on luggage through customs, to the baggage claim, and onto a very nice heavily air-conditioned bus that shuttled us to the Tamarijn All Inclusive Resort.
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The ride from the airport to the resort was a journey through a semi apocolyptic and somewhat tiajuana-esque landscape of collapsed and abandoned buildings intermixed with sections of tourist shopping gauntlets and industrial shipping ports all scattered along a narrow and twisty main road with strange European style graphic road signs.
We observed it all through the rose-tinted glasses of first time visitors on their first vacation in far too long. The bus blared bad American pop rock with a few Spanish pop ballads mixed in. The bus driver doubled as the bell hop and was extremely friendly. We immeditaely began to put into practice our theory that tipping often will lead to good relations with the staff. This was to be our home for the next 8 days, after all.
With the mixture of Dutch and South American the most familiar analogy I've been able to come up with is the love child of Canad and Mexico, with lots of beach front and desert. With the mixure of run down and apartment-style motels, we were very happy to find we were staying at one of the recent remodeled hotels, right on the beach, along a somewhat quiet stretch of Southwest-facing beach.Satisfactorily clean and modern, and delightfully right on the beach, we had only a few minutes to take in the large main lobby: an attractive outdoor pavilion with several tightly bundled service counters, intermixed with giant cushioned outdoor booths, televisions, pool, ping pong and more in the near distance. But we were quickly carried toward the check in counter, where a cadre of polite and professional reception attendants wisked us through the check-in process with the sort of ease that comes with substantial practice. We were then loaded onto an extended golf cart with a pickup bed for our luggage. An long and windy ride on a sidewalk, past several pools and rows of rooms took us to the far south end of the resort.
Our room was on the 2nd story of a 2-story block of rooms, all parallel to the ocean with patios and decks facing the tide. When we walked in, the AC was already blasting, and keeping the room nice and cold. We settle in carefully, putting everything away so as to keep the space attractive and clean. The room would be like many other upscale small hotels if it weren't for the beautiful Carribean coastline right outside your window, complete with crashing waves that are audible anytime the back door is open. We washed the long journey off and happily changed into our first fresh clothes in more than 36 hours. But we were eager to get to the business of pleasure, especially eating and drinking!
I was lead to be very wary of the sun that close to the equator, and Carly shared my same European-skinned senitments. So we dutifully sprayed each other head-to-toe with SPF 70 before charging toward the crashing surf. We quickly found a large round hut serving drinks right on the beach. The place was full of a typical California Coast bar crowd, though it was surprisingly mixed with underage and teenage as well as East Coast people. Not surprisingly, the trip is much easier to make if one is already on the East Coast. One 50-something year old man tried to order drinks for himself and an underage girl. We were relieved that he was denied, and subsequently sulked out of the bar.
We ordered pina coladas and asked the bartender to point us to the closest restaurant that didn't require reservations. She sent us further up the beach where we quickly discovered an open-air cafeteria-style restaurant covered in netting to keep birds out. Once again, cheesy American and Spanish pop rock ballads droned on at all built structures. Half of the food was palatable for me. Some of it was just plain bad cafeteria food. And because Aruba is a remote desert island, most perishable goods are brought in by ship and must be able to last a long and hot journey. It was my first reminder of how good we have it in The Bay Area.
It turned out that the cafeteria was the background that we could not quite make out from the reservation desk, the far end of the entrance pavilion. A bar adjoined the cafeteria, and was butted up against a big attractive pool that was surrounded by lounge chairs. Other places to eat were just beyond that, then the pool and ping pong tables then back to the front entrance.
We walked along the beach until the sun set. Then we made went back to the pavilion where the pool was lit up by changing color bulbs, and bright lights illuminated tables selling trinkets. People swam in the pool. We enjoyed a Balashi, the local beer, and explored a staircase that led to a deck that looked out over the pavilion. Then we went back to our room, changed into swim suits, and played in a pool near our room until we were utterly exhausted. We fell asleep easily that night, with the door open to the crash of the ocean waves.
