My Trip To Aruba

This was the other year but I came across it as I was purging my overstuffed computer....figured I could drop it here for anyone bored enough to read through it

All inclusive stay in Aruba courtesy of my wife's company. Review as follows extracted from real-time daily correspondence with a friend back in civilization enjoy, learn:

I was going to get a "Where's Natalie Holloway?" Tee-shirt printed up for the trip.

finally managed to get Internet access.....let me tell you...skip Aruba if you can ....no need to add it to the list of "Can-I-Please-Have-These-Days-of-My-Life-Back?" events we all carry with us. A 77 square mile flat spit of sand 20 miles off Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. The locals are all born and bred to cater to the tourist industry they are schooled in 5 languages to the extent that they are able to fluently cover economic transactions in their favor. There is no other means of survival for them..as I said to my wife Virginia on the shuttle ride to the hotel...if the cruise ships and airplanes stopped coming in,,, these people would be cannibals eating each other within 3 weeks

It is now 6 a.m. Atlantic time and Va. is awake and wanting coffee, currently she is ranting that there is no room service until 7 a.m....

the locals are fine as long as you stay within the narrowly defined parameters and cattle chutes that represent their version of the authentic "Aruba Experience" as soon as you go off-script the sunny smile disappears and a sullen and resistant attitude spreads into their behavior...I can only imagine how the Holloway's felt when trying to get a straight story about their missing daughter's where-abouts.......

Prices are ridiculous, there is no appreciable history, culture or architecture to this island....if you aren't a lush there is very little to do and I don't imbibe...my liver was damn near shot by the time I was 35 so the doctors said stop drinking or make your final arrangements....

and there I was thinking I was just getting warmed up for the real run and I got bounced out of the line-up...just as well...everyone benefited from me ending my reign of terror except perhaps the hard liquor industry

Aruba is where people (unless they are into diving) lacking in imagination and thoroughly gullible to brochures go to get sunburned and drunk for whatever time they spend here...and when they are done and back home they look at the photos they took.... and try to convince themselves they had fun or at least numbed themselves to the boredom and avarice they landed in the middle of.

If I see one more Jimmy Buffet wannabe Margaritaville type I might start throwing punches....gray hair, receding hairline (but with long mandatory ponytail) Hawaiian shirt, surfer shorts and birkenstock hippy sandals, pot belly and a big old cup full of some tropical fruit and booze drink....there must be a factory turning these buttwipes out in every tropical venue

Just to vindicate myself and explain how I wound up in such a lousy predicament...my wife's company gave their US sales team a group-trip to anywhere on the planet for 5 days as a reward for bringing in some great sales numbers for the company. They let one of the younger single women here research a destination and they voted this over my wife's wish to go to Alaska or Italy/France, Great Wall of China, Yucatan at least for the ruins....

but NOOOOO we have to go 5 hours in a plane to a place that is no different than any friggin Key Largo/Key West Tiki Bar pukehole....and I had to kick in 700.00 to cover the double room. Do I sound bitter?

Va. is happy that I decided to come along...even happier because I am not good at "pretend" off-camera nor is she...we take the wired-up smiles off our faces in the hotel room and jointly howl in outrage.

Shall I continue with the food critique?? Yes I shall....words like hog slop and reheated tier 3 fast food dressed-up come to mind....since everything is flown or floated into this dump "fresh" is not a reality....I went with the boiled shrimp off the buffet and after peeling the mushy shells was rewarded with a pasty textured old sea bug...remember food is secondary in importance because most folks are drunk all the time on tropical fruity drinks so their palates are less than sharp...now granted I am a little spoiled when it comes to food being able to hit the best NYC establishments on whim...but this is sub-par by anyone's standards

Do I sound bitter?

700 bucks would have bought a lot of something worthwhile back home...well we are here and will make the most of it...I am not quite at the point where I am looking at early departure arrangements but will not rule out hatching an early escape plan .....maybe create a sick near-death Aunt or something back home... Va. is good at reading my face and my mind,,,she already warned me that I can't manufacture an early departure and leave her here alone with her coworkers for the balance of the trip

Well hope this little travelogue installment has been helpful!!!

Well enough from me for now...oh look!!! It is RAINING out!!! Maybe monsoon season.

DAY 2

Last night was the outdoor beach "BBQ" hosted by the hotel staff of the Hotel and Casino. One tray after another brimming with as Va. referred to it: "more slop, outdoor slop"

They even had a chafing dish of "traditional Aruban pancakes" that looked quite similar to the pancakes served at breakfast...maybe the "traditional" aspect is that they serve everything over and over until it is consumed by someone. They even had a little sign with the Aruban name for them in front of the dish...I am fairly confident that the translation of Aruban would be "leftovers" or maybe "tourist slop pancakes"

The BBQ selection was thin strips of beef cooked by a happy Aruban on a gas grill...it was like beef jerky that was not fully dried out to the desired level of preservation ability...wet jerky

The hot water in the shower is well...not hot...lukewarm and not a lot of pressure....I remarked to Va. that I piss hotter and stronger than the damn plumbing...probably cleaner too...this probably saves them on utility bills

We have redubbed the Casino to its real name; Therisno.....(as in there-is-no way you'll win a game of chance"...since nothing is left to chance on this Caribbean sheep-fleecing station. One of the members of the group who fancies himself a cardsharp wandered into the casino for the full bath....he takes all his vacations at Reno and Vegas...on an island geared to relieving you of the burden of carrying money in your pockets, the odds set in the casino are not fettered by Gaming Commissions like in the US....machines and card decks are stacked.....the clue for this idiot should have been the fact that the casino is pretty much empty every time day or night that we went past it.

Betch BBQ continued: We had "local native" dancers and performers prancing and gyrating to salsa and meringue music while we picked at our personal selections of outdoor buffet slop...I don't know how local they were...a few looked like they spent their best days swinging on poles in a Newark topless joint and were probably put ashore at Auba...marooned by some cruise ship for lack of talent or soliciting cruise passengers

The hotel manager, our host was extolling the virtues of the many beautiful "sandy white betches" on the island....I almost spat the slop out of my mouth....I thought he was talking about white women...and I immediately asked the rest of our gang if he was talking about his lust for anglo women or the oceanfront....that got a few laughs.

Now during our BBQ feast we were given critique cards to fill out....providing our rating and assessment of the many services, and of course a place to put our name, room number and home address....nothing like stacking the ratings deck in your favor...there are several days to go before we are liberated from this camp and the last thing you do, is be candid about the prison guards and accommodations. Kind of like a Red Cross visit to the WW2 Death Camps, even though the damned are already in hell, if they speak up...remember there is always a hotter spot in hell awaiting you if you so choose.

So my wife's boss' was the name I used on my critique form as I filled out a complete trashing...in the section where they asked what "the best feature of the hotel" was...I inked in: "employing the housekeeping staff as room cleaners and prostitutes"....It went downhill from there...I want to see how rapidly my wife's boss's visit migrates into the special guest treatment package of full island vengeance

So when they all ask "how do you like ARUBA?"...I smile and reply "It is truly a once in lifetime experience"...

And if there is a merciful god it will indeed only be......"once"

DAY 3

Yes, the next installment:

"THE JEEP TOUR" 77.00 dollars US, per victim.

What appeared to be a benign ride around this Devil's Island (as displayed in the rolling footage on a screen behind the sign-up desk)....... turned out to be an exercise in tearing your kidneys loose, rupturing lower lumbar disks and otherwise testing your adrenaline pump and reminding you of any infirmity you are trying to ignore by aggravating it to the point of requesting medevac....the only things missing were roadside IED's detonating to flesh-out the full Iraq experience

"Off-Road Ass Pounding" falls short of describing the full extent of the bodily insults that were rendered....more like a week-end spent with lonely Turkish Prison Guards equipped with unnatural desires and baseball bats to ensure your submission. When we got to the jeep corral we were handed waivers with extensive fine print covering our inability to sue these monsters and I am sure there was some clause in there signing all of our worldly possessions over to Aruba should they actually succeed in killing us. This waiver was neither mentioned nor discussed during sign-up at the hotel prior to our excursion to the edge of life.

To make matters more interesting, we had to choose among ourselves a driver for each team of 4-6 hapless victims. I let a young guy in his 20's from NY drive so I could soak in the sparse scraps of landmarks and scenery. I was hoping there were lush rain forests on this island where it had not be fully paved over with hotels and tourist traps and that we would be rolling through lush rainforest with parrots and macaws hurling insults at us....WRONG...Aruba is a desert island covered in volcanic soil and 2 types of cactus...the Arizona desert is a close approximation to the terrain....this close to the Equator means desert and lots of it....

being in jeep number 3 meant that our view of the island was obscured by tons of dust....I am certain that Va. and I both now have advanced silicosis....

what the dust of the Trade Center collapse hasn't done to my lungs I am certain the dust of Aruba will complete...the jeeps each had speakers in them and a wireless hook up to the official driver-guide's jeep so he could narrate our experience and point out the things we were supposed to appreciate

when we did stop to appreciate the raw and manmade beauty of Aruba we saw the following memorable treats; The natural bridge that collapsed 3 years ago; A magnificent(?) formation of large rocks: a chapel at the north end of the island in what was the "true north" of the ass-end of nowhere where people could stop to worship....or pray for their lives for the balance of the tour; next, the oceanfront "BlowHole" where a jet of water would shoot upward with each incoming wave. I told our crew that I wanted a tee-shirt that said "I saw the Blow Hole". We saw lots of billy and nanny goats...they seem to thrive of the scrub growth...or perhaps they have reduced the island to scrub growth; we saw an old closed lighthouse and an abandoned gold-ore stamping mill from the last century

The dust was soon so thick in our hair that I was able to twist my locks up into devil's horns and they stayed

The only sight that really warmed me up was when our designated driver almost rolled our Land Rover over in a wash-out gulley on the trail near the crest of a hill...the look of sheer terror on the screaming faces of a Boston lesbian couple (who were in our jeep) had me roaring with laughter despite the fact that we were on the verge of tumbling down the hillside to our deaths or dismemberments..

.that alone was worth everything we had endured.... these two were the stiffest, stuffiest pair of people I had the displeasure to meet yet on the trip..to see spontaneous animation of any sort on their faces delighted me.

I was pounding on the driver's shoulder and telling him he was doing a fantastic job and to please keep the adrenaline pump going...everyone else thought I was insane...I felt our wheel man needed positive encouragement and a solid vote of confidence since he was adding something authentic and worthwhile to our tour...he responded well to the encouragement and salvaged us and the jeep from a serious situation

Now while we were poised at the brink of the hereafter, the entire time our guide's voice was chattering merrily away on our in-jeep speaker from half a mile down the "road" oblivious to our near-death experience. The brochure advertised "refreshments and a fresh snack" during the tour. Desalinated water and a Quaker Oats energy bar were the bill of fare.....I guess my standards have not re-adjusted to Island definitions.....I ate my allotment annoyed that my last meal might be such a miserable one.

The island terrain is pitched gullies and sharp rises with monsoon wash-outs all over on the trails....the trails had plenty of volcanic rock washboard and coral base areas...the rest of the trip was less than memorable....

Va. And I left our jeep back at the corral dirt-coated and exhausted from the isometrics of hanging on to the jeep as it bounced us around like rag dolls in a tin cage for 4.5 hours. It is not a tour for anyone out-of-shape over 60 years of age or with any physical infirmity...I believe they are doing a real disservice to the tourists by not adequately describing the level of punishment facing the potential victim.

I do not exaggerate anything that has transpired, it really was as I have portrayed it....I can laugh at it because I do have a few loose screws anyway but Va.'s level of continued outrage is a smouldering volcano...someone soon is going to get the full-frontal blast of her executioner genetics....it won't be me though since I bought her a beautiful white gold ring with diamond set in a bunch of smaller diamonds the other day in a diamond shop...tax free...Dutch Island, maybe DeBeers connections to South Africa....nice stones at good rates....and I got a fist full of fresh Cuban Havana's to gnaw on while I'm here

meanwhile Va's boss at dinner was complaining about how borderline-vicious the help was being towards him....guess the ratings card I filled out for him at the Betch BBQ has resonated throughout the hotel staff...:-)