Second Trip To Aruba
05/08/2012-12/08/2012
Part
2
Monday 6th August was the first Monday in a
long time that I woke up not feeling ticked off or apathetic towards it being
Monday. I woke up a few times between 2am and 5am but quickly drifted back to
sleep with the hum of the air conditioning unit to lull me to sleep. Speaking
of the AC there is a note in the room where they tell you what level to keep it
at. They recommend that we keep it at 25*, which was really honking cold. For a
while there I thought that I had fallen asleep in line at the airport. The
first time I woke up was to grab the heavy quilt from the small closet to cover
with, I would use that quilt for the duration of my stay. Getting up and out of
bed was a bit difficult as I felt soooooooooooooo relaxed!!! But the thoughts
of what the day had in store was enough to convince me to get up and moving.
Breakfast that morning was leftover barbecue, I had planned to make it last
till Tuesday, but it was just too damn tasty and impossible to ignore. The
remainder from Sunday night was finished off that morning.
The relatives plans for the day involved going to
Moomba Beach after midday, then out to dinner later that evening. With the huge
amount of time that we had left I made some plans of my own. First I went over
to the reservations desk where guests normally check-in upon arrival. It’s
where guests can also go if they need to get currency changed or broken up into
something smaller, purchase tokens for the washers and dryers, pick up some of
the local tourism magazines, and inquire or make arrangements to go on tours
into the city or around the island. I went for the magazines and to also
inquire about a certain outing that I had every intention of going on. The
staff at the front desk were courteous, cordial and friendly, and sent me in
the right direction to the activities office. More on that later on! Trust me,
I’ll get to that later on down the line.
Till we left for the beach I spent most of the morning
relaxing on the porch/gallery of the room, got re-acquainted with the basic
cable channel line up for Aruba. Divided my viewing time between ABC Family,
National Geographic Channel, NBC( for the Olympics) Boomerang and a few of the
movie channels. Once I had that figured out it was off to Moomba Beach. How to
describe Moomba Beach? Picture Pigeon Point with whiter sand, more hotels
within close proximity, several beach bars and restaurants, and a mixture of
tourists and locals all up and down the beach. That’s Moomba Beach!! As CPV is
part of an arrangement with several of the beach facilities on the island we
were allowed to use the beach chairs for free, we did have to pay for the huge
beach umbrella though. The afternoon sun on the island makes for a hot time, as
my feet could testify to. The umbrella provided us with some good shade, except
that with my long legs stuck out and my feet were baking in the sun. No matter
how many times I applied sun block or poured water on my feet, they were baking
and from time to time I had to get up from the beach chair, and walk into the
water them off. I also learned a really important lesson, when it comes to
applying sun block be careful how much you put on your face. Some of it got
into my eyes from the perspiration which lead to irritated eyes. Which got in
the way of reading and observing the fine talent that was on parade( i.e. local
and tourist women) walking up and down the beach. Those women could give Trini
women some stiff competition!!
We stayed there till the beach staff began to gather
the chairs and as beach goers began to depart to their respective hotels,
walking back to the car reminded me of going to Pigeon Point with my dad and having
to wash our feet off before we got into the car. The trick to that is to wait
till you get to your car then begin washing your feet off, that way you won’t
have to do it twice. With the beach behind us it was back to CPV to shower,
relax and cool off before going out to dinner. All that we need to do was
figure out where we were going for dinner, deep down I was hankering for some
TGI Fridays style burgers, I had a great burger from them the last time I was
on the island and was looking forward to the prospect of getting to experience
it again. My cousin made the request for Iguana Joe's, which was a Mexican restaurant
in the mall within the Palm beach area. While not what I was hoping for just being
on Aruba was enough to convince me to go there for dinner( note to self, next
time speak up with regards to where to go for dinner).
Iguana Joes was on the second floor overlooking the
mall plaza down below, where we were seated situated us right behind a tree
which made it challenging to see the goings on down below. That night a local
youth dance troupe had a performance in the plaza. From where we were sitting
it was a challenge to really see what was going on along with hearing what the
MC was saying. There was no problem when it came to the music, we heard that
loud and clear. As for everything else it was a challenge. Could not help but
think that we would have been able to see and hear if we had gone to TGI
Fridays. That night was to be the first night that I would catch a glimpse of
the Ribbon Dance, which is a traditional
dance done in Aruba to commemorate the Queen’s Birthday. I would see it
performed two more times.
One of the dance numbers would come as a major surprise
for me. It was in the part of the show when they were on their Carnival Season
which coincides with ours, that I would hear Soca, and it was a song by Destra.
Believe it or not Soca is quite popular there, both local and regional
performers have songs that are in heavy rotation. Nigel and Marvin’s Follow the
Leader is still a big tune over there. Anyhow it was great hearing a soca song
that I recognised, which helped to emphasise that T&T has made
contributions to the culture of the island, and that service was slow and my
stomach was complaining.
There were four waiters and waitresses on duty that
night, and they were obviously swamped. For the most part they were all trying
to keep up, with the exception of one waitress who was moving s-l-o-w!!!. In
the time that it took her to deliver an order and return to the kitchen to
collect another order, her fellow co-worker had already delivered orders to two
tables and taken the orders from three tables.
In spite of that dinner was good, I had the Mexican Burger. What makes
it a Mexican Burger? The huge serving of avocado or guacamole that was heaped
on top of the burger. I ate it off the burger before putting the bread back on
top to eat the burger.
Before leaving we took a quick walk around through the
plaza which I learnt is always busy no matter what day of the week. Judging by the number of people that we there,
both tourists and locals, it was a sure sign that businesses in that mall were
doing well. Looking around I could not help but think that this is what Tobago
could be tourism was doing right. I could picture something like Palm Beach in
the Pigeon Point , Mount Irving areas. Something like that could probably even
work in Trinidad. Maybe someday the authorities will take a page from Aruba’s
Tourism play book, apply it and actually get it right. Just a matter of time I
guess.
Day one came and went all too quickly, but I still had
six days left on the trip. Six more days to enjoy, two more days than the last
time.
To Be Continued……….
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