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June 2005

North Coast

David Aaronson
2005-10-01 20:31:16

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In contrast to the south side of Aruba, the north coast is relatively rugged. There aren't really any safe swimming beaches and almost no settlements at all. There are a couple stretches of this side of the island that are paralleled by dirt roads but in many places there is no direct access to the coast.

One area that most visitors make it to is the Natural Bridge. This is supposedly the number one thing to go see in Aruba and there are buses, party buses, jeep tours, ATV tours and horseback tours to see it. We rented a car for a couple days in order to discover what all the commotion was about. Natural Bridge certainly isn't any reason to rent a car though. This is a rest area along the coast road to Natural Bridge. It would have been more scenic if it weren't for the jeep tours roaring past every few minutes.

Here's the sort of picture one sees in brochures of Aruba for Natural Bridge (1). It looks impressive enough doesn't it?

This is what it actually looks like (2). More people than you'll find anywhere else in Aruba walking around on the designated landmark of the island. As you can see, in reality it's not very big. There are also at least two more of these formations nearby that do not have a horde of people standing on them. It's unclear to us why this one was specially chosen. Also not visible here is the gift shop, restaurant, and vast parking lot. There is no hike to the spot unfortunately as that would at least spread people out a little bit. All in all this was quite disappointing. And speaking of disappointing, the Casibari rock formations nearby are another highlight of Aruba. Really it's a very big boulder with a staircase to the top of it. Casibari also comes with gift shop and restaurant.

There are some interesting things in the area though, they just aren't the advertised spots. Near the Ostrich farm (another dubious ...