Oranjestad, Willemstad, stad, stad, stad

Yesterday morning we finally hit our first port, Oranjestad, Aruba. We had requested a wake up call but I was up about 10 minutes before the phone rang. We had to get up early because we had booked a 4x4 off road Jeep shore excursion and we were supposed to be at the cruise terminal at 8:20 AM. We got on a bus that took us to where the Jeeps were and got paired up with another couple. I drove the first leg of the trip. Early in the morning the weather wasn't looking very promising, it was very cloudy but it cleared up, and got much hotter, as the day progressed.

Our first stop was the Casibari Rock Formations, these are massive mysterious boulders which no one knows how they got there. Their geology is very different from everything else in the island but there are more of these rock formations a little further to the North East. Second stop was the Natural Bridge. There used to be two, one very big 25 feet high and over 100 feet long bridge and a smaller one. A few months ago, however, the large one collapsed leaving just the little, unimpressive one for tourists to see. Then we went to the Alto Vista Chapel, which was originally built by the Spanish in 1750 and has been remodelled a few times since. The California Lighthouse was next, a tall, not very impressive lighthouse named after a British steamship which shipwrecked off the coast in 1891. All that time we were off road and I was by no means enjoying it. It was hot and my skin was sticking to the leather seats and sweating like a pig. It was dusty because we were driving through the desert (what ever happened to TROPICAL????); it was bumpy and just icky. My hair was disgusting with dust and even my clothes were dusty. How did I let Matt talk me into that??? Finally we stopped at the beach for about half an hour. Even though it was bloody hot, the water was cold so I had to get in little by little. After the 30 minutes were up we drove back to home base and then on the bus to the ship.

After lunch, I wanted to go to the beach but Matt had a headache. He's always complaining about the heat and he does not travel well, not in places where it's not cold anyway. This drives me nuts because I can tough it out but he can't. He makes these puppy dog faces and wants to stay inside. Around 3ish I finally convinced him to go to the beach so we took a cab there. We found a spot in the shade under a tree and he parked himself there. I took my clothes off and braved the cold water again, then laid out my towel in the sun and toasted for a bit. He wanted to go wade so I went with him. After a few minutes of that we decided we'd had enough and took the bus back to the ship. I understand that he burns in the sun and what not, but he was wearing sunscreen all day, I understand that he dehydrates quickly but he doesn't drink as much as he knows he should. I love him to death and we are very much compatible in everything else but when it comes to travelling in warm climates, I sometimes feel he slows me down. I know it is awful for me to say that and I hope he forgives me for it but it's the truth. However, he has just told me it's not his fault and I agree.

We were pretty tired so we crashed by 9:30 PM

This morning we docked in Willemstad, Curacao. The morning was once again cloudy but we decided we'd go out in town anyway since yesterday was the same and it turned into a nice day. It was pretty early, only about 8:30 am when we got off the ship and started walking around. We took the ferry to the other side of town, Punda, and walked around for a bit. It was hot but still overcast. At around 10ish we decided we wanted to rent a car so we started investigating our options. After a while we realized it wasn't as good, or easy, an idea as we had thought so we went back to the ship for lunch. At around 3:30 pm we headed out again to do a bit of shopping. I was hot but still cloudy, although not as bad as in the morning.

Tonight there's a deck party and fireworks as we leave the pier and tomorrow is another day at see so it won't be exciting enough to blog.