Aruba Vacay

Matt and I celebrated our 2-year wedding anniversary back in October (of last year. Yikes.  Obviously, I am great at keeping this thing current.) One year later, I'm getting around to writing about our celebratory trip. After much deliberation, Aruba won out as the vacation spot for the year and we were not disappointed! Here's a rundown of our trip:

Day 1 consisted of Lots o' Travel.  The only downside to Aruba is that it is really frickin far when you live on the west coast. Not surprisingly, that destination is more popular for east coasters and Europeans, but we weren't going to let a little distance stop us from enjoying the gorgeous Aruban beaches. Friday night after work, we packed up our bags with mostly swimsuits and sunscreen and Kim drove us to the airport for our red eye flight. We had been crossing our fingers for a first class upgrade to make plane sleeping a little more bearable, but no such luck. We tried in vain to sleep upright - leaning against opposite sides of the same giant pillow I brought from home - but ended up only catching short naps. At our layover in Philly, we grabbed some coffee and donuts and decided to just stay awake for the second leg of the trip. After 9 and a half total hours in the air, we finally touched down in Aruba and breathed in the warm ocean air.

A quick trip through customs, then we were on our bus to the hotel. Aruba has 2 distinct sections on the tourist side of the island: the high rise hotels on Palm Beach and the low rise area on Eagle Beach. The high rise was more about the restaurants, bars and nightlife activity, and the low rise was all about the beach. While we like both, we decided that this was a relaxing vacation and booked our room at the Bucuti and Tara Beach Resort in the low rise area. We were greeted with champagne and told that our room wasn't quite ready, so they gave us some drink vouchers and directed us to the outdoor hotel bar. After a quick lunch and some drinks, we were led to our room where we unpacked and changed into our beachwear.

Our Beach

Happy Hour Drinks

The rest of the afternoon was spent on the prettiest beach I've ever been to. Matt commented that he felt like we were in a Corona commercial; The sand was powdery and white, the turquoise water was a perfect temperature and perfectly clear, and the waves were low and gentle. The temperature there was always in the mid-80's with a light breeze rolling through. You could lay under one of the many palm umbrellas and have drinks brought to you all day if you wanted - just dipping into the ocean or the pool whenever you needed a refresher. It was beautiful.

Beach

 

Hotel Grounds

Hotel Pool

At dinner time, we walked across the street to a little restaurant called Pizza Bob's for a quick meal. We split a pizza and listened to a... unique performer.  After that we were exhausted and hit the hay for a 12.5 hour nap. 

Relaxing on the Beach

The next day, we had breakfast out on the hotel's restaurant patio.  We ended up eating here every morning because it was just such a nice way to start the day; looking at and listening to the water, eating good food, and even getting cold hand towels brought around so we could cool off.  Then we headed back to the room to get our swimsuits on.  Surprisingly, 5 minutes later when we looked out the window, the gorgeous clear weather had turned into a freak random downpour.  These rainstorms came and went during our trip - always unexpected and usually only lasting 5 or 10 minutes before everything went back to beautiful.  Caribbean weather is weird.

Mmm.. tirimisu

We spent a lot of time at the beach, and a lot of time at the hotel bar for happy hour.  As we walked up and down the beach, Matt commented that the sand felt like we were walking on Peeps (those marshmallow Easter candies).  The sand was just so fine and gave under our feet so nicely.  We weren't sure we would ever want to come home.  That night, we went to a little Italian restaurant at the hotel next door called Giorgio's.  We were underwhelmed with the food itself, but the tirimisu dessert was delightful.

Day 3 was an adventure day - we woke up early to go on an excursion called Madi's Magical Tour.  This native Aruban woman named Madi came and picked us up in her big, red Jeep and took us along with one other guest on a tour around the island.  She told us the history of Aruba as we drove along and answered all of the questions that we had.  Our first stop was Andicuri Beach and the natural bridges.  It was cool to see the rock bridges that had been formed by years of wind and water.  The largest natural bridge had actually been destroyed in a hurricane a few years back, but the 3 remaining bridges were lovely.  We were able to walk out onto them and look out over the ocean while Madi took our pictures.  Next it was off to the Natural Pools to snorkel around.  The fish were bold and took bread right from our hands.  The best thing here was that the pools are high above the actual ocean, so it was sort of like being in an amazing infinity-edge pool!  Before taking us home, we made one last stop at a private beach with intense waves.  She told us that if we were confident in our swimming skills, we could take a dip.  Matt and I were feeling pretty good so we let the waves knock us around for a while before heading in.  The tour was great and definitely one of the highlights of our trip.

Natural Bridge

Beach on our Tour

Rock Formations

When we got back to the hotel, we had lunch at a restaurant down the street called Matthew's.  It's been kind of our vacation tradition to eat at anywhere with Matt's name in it, and it never steers us wrong.  There was an iguana walking around the restaurant that I tried to lure over with treats.  He seemed interested, but got scared when I came too close and ran away.  After lunch, we went back to our hotel for some beach, pool, a quick and easy dinner and then off to bed.

My Shy Iguana Friend

To be continued, since this is getting a little long with all of the pictures :)