Day 5: National Park! Part 2...Plants!

 

I'm going to ignore the month absence. I was busy, teaching summer school, etc. But now I'm back. And I have a backpacking trip coming up, so I must finish the spring break trip asap! Yes, yes, the Cacti were plants too, but here are some other plants. Aloe above. Aruba has lots of it for sale. And Tequila plants below?? I think. These weren't the exact plants the guy pointed out as Tequila plants, so who knows, but they look like them.

 

 

Day 5: National Park! Part 1...Cacti

The next day we drove to the National Park on other side of the island. There are tons of photos, so first off, the Cacti.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day Four: Rented car

 

The next day we rented a car and drove into the main city for lunch. Turned out it was a holiday, which we knew, but turned out that meant there wasn't much open for lunch. So we drove up to a lighthouse. The lighthouse above was not THAT exciting, but the views were nice. The dessert below was quite nice. The ocean was too.

 

Then we went to a beach that didn't have any hotels!

 

All the locals were out camping and drinking, apparently good friday there is sort of like July 4th here.

 

Day Three: Kayaking Part Two

 

 

 

This is a desalinization plant that produces all of Aruba's water. Apparently the second largest in the world.

 

 

Day Three: Kayaking Part One

The next day I went on a "kayaking" adventure. It was more like a bit of kayaking and an all inclusive island for a few hours. Still fun...just not what I was expecting. Plus, they were very concerned about us tipping over, so I didn't have my camera while kayaking. So lots of island pictures instead.

 

 

 

We did kayak around mangroves like this. That was the main viewing highlight of the kayaking.

 

Day Two: Beach

Pirate Ship! (or tour boat, whatever)

 

Wild Life....

 

 

Moose!! (Isle Royal, Summer 2007)

I couldn't resist posting now anyway (see previous post). Before this particular moose headed into the water, he/she was standing on the trail like 10 feet from us! Seriously! And then there were a couple in the water, much further away. Of course we were coming back from getting water or something when we first ran into the moose, so no camera. (Plus, 10 feet from even a medium sized lizard makes one think, great, lizard, let me get closer with the camera. 10 feet from a giant moose is more of a wow, moose, I'll just stand here sort of feeling). Still, it was pretty exciting on the wildlife experience scale, especially given my usual lack of luck with these things.