Wednesday: Walking

On the town, lizards, and the Ham of the Gods

Many pictures of lizards during our walk.

The little blue ones were our favorite.

Sunset on the beach

We figured we had to wander into town at least once, so we hopped a bus to the Aruban capital of Oranjestad (which they seem to pronounce like Orion-staat, as in the constellation).

We walked from the bus terminal on the edge of the downtown shopping district along the main street, through a couple of "malls" to the Renaissance Hotel. It has a little canal that runs under the street and into its courtyard for boats that take passengers to a private island. Which also means the beach is a long way away if you stay at that hotel. On the other hand, the courtyard is a nice little mix of seating and shops and a bridge over the canal.

We walked through the little mall attached and along another road called Main Street, which is really just another collection of shops.

We picked out a route that would take us back to a park closer to the beach. Turns out the park was fine, but the route was ill-chosen. Seems we left the downtown shopping area and wound up outside the well-kept commercial part of things. But all the streets had the names we expected them to have and we would up at the park, which includes a statue of the Dutch monarch Wilhelmina.

From there we wandered back onto the grounds of the Renaissance, this time the beach resort portion of the complex.

The sidewalk around the swimming lagoon also wound out to the rocky shore, which was landscaped with bushes and trees. Which provided a perfect hiding place for the wildlife. We saw a number of lizards (big iguanas, little blue-tailed ones and even littler bright green ones) and some small birds. And we took many pictures.

As we made it back along the shoreline, through another mall and into the marina, we started doing some shopping. You can't come to the Caribbean without picking up a few t-shirts. Also found a nice stiched change purse and a Christmas ornament.

For dinner, we headed back to the hotel (after first making reservations for the next evening at a highly recommended French restaurant downtown) since they were doing Carribbean night. (Figured if there's one kind of food they know how to do, this would be it.)

There were plenty of fine dishes available, but the carving station had the best ham ever. We went back multiple times. Each visit to the dessert table included a stop for another slice of ham. If we'd thought about the refrigerator up in our room, we probably would have grabbed some ham and rolls and called them sandwiches the next day. Don't know what they did, but that was some excellent ham.

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