Tuesday, May 15, 2007

 

First stop....Aruuuuuuuuuuuba!


Go to our Aruba photo album at our photo site to see more photos.

Troy and I decided to ease our way into our world trip by trading our timeshare and heading for Aruba for 2 weeks. Talk about ease, Troy feels like he has not even started our trip since he feels like he is in Miami. I told him "That's great, since we've never been to Miami before!"

Aruba is where you go to to do really touristy things: snorkel trips, sunset dinner cruises, tube rides, gambling trips and the Arubian famous Kuku Kunukuu Party Bus. The Kuku Kunukuu is a school bus that has all the windows knocked out, painted dangerously garish colors then loaded with several loud stereo speakers. Tourists are packed in, handed a few maracas, music turned up all the way then hauled off to drive around town in this attention grabbing bus while sporadially stopping at local bars where we were all encouraged to drink, drink, drink. This was by far the most embaresssing thing Troy and I have ever done as tourists. I don't know if it was the bus pulling into parking lots and doing backwards donuts making us feel as if we're back in high school; everyone leaning out the windows and screaming at the pedestrians while shaking our maracas; or singing at the top of our lungs to Bon Jovi while driving down main street. I personally vote for all of the above. I can only imagine that as we're driving through town and taking several turns around the roundabouts while screaming to AC/DC, the locals are probably looking at us thinkng "There goes that f**king bus again!" As embaressing as it was, it was equaly fun though. I wonder if they have anything like this in Egypt? Maybe they'll have party buses that do donuts around the pyramids while blasting Arabian music. We'll let you know.

My sister and her husband, Mandy and Ryun, were able to join us for our first week there. We spent a few days scuba diving with them; shared the memorable experience of the Kuku Kunukuu bus with them; divided a few six-packs; split the task of telling Ryun to not talk so loud (and boy, does he talk loud); even drove around the island in their rented jeep trying to find the very well hidden natural pool on the north side of the island - which we were not supposed to take the Jeep to :-). As a late Christmas gift they treated us to a very nice dinner one night. Troy and I savored every bite because we figure it will probably be the nicest meal we'll have for the next year.


We spent quite a bit of time diving since that is what this trip is mostly about. The diving was ok, nothing to write home about. Oh wait, I guess that is what I'm doing right now. Probably the most memorable thing about it is the number of bad divers kicking the reef and the newbie divers who got excited at every little sea urchin they saw (yes, I'm talking about you, Ryun!). Another tourist thing that Aruba offers is to take paying customers in a submarine ride to see the reefs at about 50´. On our last day of diving, the submarine passed us by (which is quite creepy while diving). As the passengers waved at us from inside, Troy swam right up to the window so they could get an up close picture of him. I wonder how many slide shows Troy will be in after that?
I do remember one remarkable thing about the diving is we did see the biggest Green Moray Eel ever!!!! Even though he was in a wreck, we could still see his head and about half of his body. Our dive guide said he is about 7-8' long, which is just enormous, and his head is probably the size of Troy's. Unless we come across an eel just as big in our dive travels to come, I will be able to say that I will always remember Aruba for the biggest eel I ever saw (as well as for doing the most embaressing tourist thing).

On our last day in Aruba, Troy and I tried our hand at windsurfing. I personally have to say that I kicked ass at it. Troy was not so bad himself, although I was out of the water more then him :) He says I wasn´t, but whatever!

Next stop... one month in Costa Rica, including 9 days on a liveaboard diving the Cocos Islands!

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