One Happy Island

The Exotic Allure of Aruba

By Sue Marquette Poremba

Jolly Pirates offers a number of other snorkeling and SCUBA activities. Captain Harold and his wife are two of the nicest people on the island. But Jolly Pirates is only one of many businesses offering water activities.

For our bike excursion, we contacted Aruba Active Vacations, who delivered two bikes, helmets, locks and water bottles to our hotel at 8 a.m. and arranged to pick them up 12 hours later. We decided to ride to the north end of the island, to the California lighthouse and the sand dunes on the northeast point of the island. Vehicles aren't allowed on the dunes, so we had the area pretty much to ourselves, as we walked our bikes down to the water. This part of the island was like a different world. The western side had the sandy beaches and soft lapping waters. On the eastern side, the waves were whipped up by the strong trade winds and crashed onto boulders.

We tried to eat at different places for dinner each night. Next to our hotel was a string of restaurants that looked like a little strip mall, all with seating outside. There were little huts on the edge of the seating for souvenir shopping, and at night, there would be musical entertainment from a stage in the center of the shopping area.

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