Up early on New Year's Eve morning, we arrived at the airport in Aruba, turned in our rental car....only to find our DAE flight had been canceled. Seems the airline was in financial trouble and had restructured its flight schedule. I frantically raced around the airport, trying to make other arrangements and calling the resort in Curacao to advise them that we would be delayed. Not a great way to start the morning!
We landed in Curacao about an hour late, but the driver was waiting for us outside the airport. Alex, the driver made a stop at the big grocery store so we could get groceries before the drive out to All West Apartments in Westpunt. Checked into our apartment, we unpacked, and walked down to the beach.....sitting under a Manchineel Tree for shade...only to find out later the tree and its fruit are poisonous! Seems we had some of the sap of the tree on our hands and spread it onto our eyes, lips,and faces.....which began to burn! In fact, it burned for several days!
Live and learn....don't sit under that tree! We didn't see the signs until later!
New Years Day we had a late breakfast, a light lunch before heading to the dive shop to do a checkout dive. That night we enjoyed dinner at Sol Food and saw our friend, Sunshine. Dale and I shared a salad and pizza....Sunshine surprised me with a delicious brownie with ice cream and had the whole restaurant sing "Happy Birthday".
Diving filled the next few days...two boats dives every morning, but we didn't get back to the dock until almost 1:30 pm each day. Dale and I enjoyed a snorkel boat trip together with a stop at the "Blue Room" and a snorkel over a shipwreck.
The folks at the dive shop began working with the airlines trying to get us a flight back to Aruba to catch our flight home.....with not much luck! Finally we found a flight a day early and booked it.....Monique our friend in Aruba found us a room for the night, so our plans were set.
Our last full day we decided to drive into Punda and do some sightseeing and have lunch. I had read about a museum, and after a long, hot hike we found it. Taking a taxi back to the harbor we discovered our car had been booted for a parking violation. As we tried to figure out what to do....a young, very attractive woman and young man stopped and said to get in their car and they would take us to the office to pay the fine. It was kinda wild, but off we went....boy was this young lady a "Guardian Angel". Fine paid we crossed the swinging bridge to eat lunch in a cafe and watch the traffic along the waterway.
Our diver picked us up the next morning for our flight back to Aruba, were we grabbed a taxi for the trip to our room at the Camacurri Apartments for the night. We decided to go out and find some place for supper...........and after a very long walk we found ourselves in downtown Oranjestad at Iguana Joe's for dinner.
Not wanting to take any chances we arrived at the airport early....the process in Aruba is very long and tiring! Finally we boarded our flight and landed in Houston...driving home in a dense fog.
The trip was a real adventure, but we survived, had some laughs and made some great memories to cherish!
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