Ethan’s Journey

 Today we had our boat tour. We arrived at the pier in a timely fashion and placed ourselves on the boat in a row where no one else sat. Introvert score! Andy is an introvert too.  The boat had a water slide out the back. There was an open bar with a handful of drinks served. We had our designated driver, which wasn’t me. I had all of the drinks except the pina colada as I am not a huge fan of those. They didn’t have margaritas but that was ok. We got to the first location and I went down the water slide to enter the water. We got to snorkel around. There were so many cool fish. I really like the gracefulness of the underwater world. Everything just seems to move so fluently. The fish were vibrant and seemed not to care that I was right next to them. I like snorkling. I like the colors of the fish, the underwater world and movement from the waves. It is an entire world that I don’t know that much about. Our second stop was a shipwreck. It was about 60 feet deep but we got to s...

 Today was a really fun day. We started the day off by going to the gold mine ruins. I went inside and climbed my way to near the top.  We explored a few water coves that were beautiful. We then went to the cave pool. This was a cliff with a ladder on the side. You climb down the ladder and walk a short distance, then there is a secret pool. You can jump into the water from high up above. I was the only one in the group to do this. It was so refreshing.  It was so hot out, it took the sweatiness away.  I swam in the pool. The ceiling was pretty and had a reddish color to it. We then went to the ostrich farm. We wanted to get the tour and see what it was all about. We were hoping to ride an ostrich but that wasn’t a possibility, HA! While we were waiting, we saw peacock, turkey, ducks and more. When it came time for our tour, our tour guide didn’t speak English well and was difficult to understand. We did get the idea of what he was saying. They can see 2.2 miles, the...

 The slogan in Aruba is “Aruba, one happy island.” So far we are finding this to be true. We had a leisurely morning. I found this neat roadside snack stand a short walk down the road. Since we are in the locals section of town, we decided to try a bit of their local cuisine. We had different types of empanadas for breakfast. They were yummy. Paul and I walked there together. We saw some dead frogs on the way.  Their bodies were the size of my fist. I hope to see a live one. We have a resident iguana that is about 2 feet long living in the side yard of our rental. He’s super cool but HE doesn’t think he and I should be friends. Boo! I found this local beach close to where we are staying. When we got there we were delighted to see it wasn’t very crowded at all. There were also mangroves all around. We snagged a cabana to hang out in for the afternoon.  I am like a kid at the beach. I walked around and looked at all the stones, coral, sea life and birds. I saw a pelican div...