ABC Islands visit Part III

ABC Islands Visit- Part III

Tuesday, December 24,2024- Aruba- Leeward Antilles

         We were up by 7 A.M. It was already 86 degrees, hot and humid outside. Today would be a scorcher. The ship maneuvered into Williamsted Harbor and anchored at 8 A.M. We had no tours planned for the day, so we opted for a formal breakfast in the Deck 4 Opus Dining room. While a little nicer than the slop chute, the food was pretty much the same. We had some very good omelettes and delicious coffee. The Trivia game on deck 15 again caught our attention. We scored average on general knowledge and registered “stupid” on a general food category. We repaired to our cabin and got ready to go ashore.

          Aruba and Curaçao are now autonomous, self governing constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, while Bonaire is a special municipality of the Netherlands. They had been united, together with St. Martin’s and two other Dutch-speaking islands into a confederation until 2010. Internal differences had split up the group. They now were part of the Netherlands Territories. The U.S. Dollar is an official currency. The natives speak a variety of languages, Spanish, Dutch, English and Papiemento, a blend of several languages.

        We had spent a week here, at one of the beach resorts, some years ago. The larger island of Aruba is semi-desert. The beaches are beautiful. On another day trip, years later, we had again walked the Main Street of Williamsted. The colorful Dutch colonial facades of the businesses, in their pastel shades, was attractive. High end clothing stores and jewelry shops were open and ready for all of the arriving cruise passengers. The Covid epidemic had nearly crippled the economy of all these tourism centers in the Caribbean.

        As we disembarked the ship, the humidity enveloped us. We walked up to the City portals, cleared customs and set out. There were five cruise ships in port today. The horde of brightly clad and noisy tourists engulfed the town. Dozens of tour promoters greeted everyone, trying to hawk seats on their tours. We browsed some tourist shops and walked for a bit, enjoying the ebb and flow of a multi-cultural scrum of shoppers. Many of the picturesque Dutch Colonial facades had surrendered to modern businesses. The town was less attractive for the transformation. After a few hours, we returned to the welcome air-conditioned bubble of the Reflection.

       We took in a salad on deck 14 and then returned to our cabin to read and enjoy the A/C. I was reading Mark Greaney’s “The Chaos Man.” A brief nap led later into Martini’s, with cheese and crackers, on the balcony. The seas around us are a startling turquoise blue. All manner of pleasure craft and tour craft floated by, noisy with their happy cargoes.

         We cleaned up and went to dinner at Six P.M., at the Deck 4 Opus Restaurant. A glass of cabernet, led into a wonderful seafood bisque, shrimp scampi and chocolate cake. We would be in the gym tomorrow morning paying off this caloric debt.

          Finally, we listened to Christmas Carols in the central foyer and thought of all those family and friends in far away places. Nostalgic, we repaired to or cabin to read and surrender to the sand man.