We drove from the airport to Oranjestad, the Aruban capital city to have lunch. At the time there was a lot of road work and parking was absolutely awful so my first impressions of Aruba weren't great. I didn't really like Oranjestad at all - after parking a long way from the central city area we walked for a long time trying to find a decent place to have brunch but we ended up at Starbucks instead. I'm sure the development will pay off in the future but I found it a big waste of time.
The kids were all about seeing the Ostrich Farm today so we got out of the city as quickly as we could and headed for the northern coast. It was barely a 30 minute drive but well worth the diversion because the kids got a closeup experience with the birds and even some chicks as well. The farm has emus as well as ostriches - the difference being emus (from Australia) are much smaller and have three toes; ostriches (from Africa) are the only birds with two toes. All the time though I couldn't help but wonder what ever became of the Moa - the 12 foot, 500lb beauty that graced New Zealand long ago.
Lily at the Ostrich Farm on Matividri Road
Orville the Ostrich
After the Ostrich Farm we drove south past the ugly Valero oil refinery to Baby Beach at the southern tip of the island so the kids could swim, and wash the smell of ostrich off them. The beach was okay but there were very few amenities and the toilets were closed. Not for the first time we encouraged the kids to pee in the ocean.
Lily at the Lost Seaman Memorial in southern Aruba
We found a cool place for dinner called Pinchos Bar & Grill next to the marina overlooking the bay. It was super close to the airport so a good place to enjoy a lovely meal before catching the last flight back to Curacao. I wasn't that impressed with Aruba but maybe it was because we only had a day there - I just never felt comfortable there.
Lily, Sara and Seb at Pinchos
No comments:
Post a Comment