The Creswell Family: Day 5

this morning we awoke bright and early for our ATV tour. i was kind of nervous. i'd never riden or driven an ATV. i drove a motor bike right into an irrigation ditch once and memories of that were starting to come back...scary.

we waited for our tour bus in front of the resort. we were told that they would be there by 9:00 am. we the time came and went and we waited till about 9:30 when they actually arrived. we were getting use to aruba time. then we were off. off, off, and away on our 4 wheelers. our atv group consisted of myself, b and our tour guide. so nice. we went up and down one side of the islands coast, we found this out by looking at a map the day after. the aruban coast is simply breath taking. there were small coves and beaches everywhere. i didn't see much of it at first...i was too busy concentrating on driving. but after a few close calls and then finally flying off and into a huge thornbush, i was able to view the scenery and drive at the same time. and it was just so gorgeous.

our first sight was a small church on a hillside. it was so charming and quaint. at this sight you could look out and pretty much see the entire island. it was so pretty.

we stopped at the last indian castle left on the island.

our guide, angelo, told of it's history and about the rock pyramids all over the place. when the indians left a place they loved...their homes, they would build these 'hope' pyramids. the pyramids signified a place that they hoped to see again one day. these days the tourist are very intrigued with them that they too make their own 'hope' pyramids with rocks. i remembered seeing one last year on our grand canyon hike. i thought it was pretty cool.

we then rode to a small natural pool. b and angelo had fun climbing the rocks and diving off into the water.

their were little crabs all over the rocks that would scatter when anyone came near. they were kind of creepy. i didn't get in because i had made up my mind before the tour that i would not be subjecting my blood to any mosquitos in any more natural pools after hawaii. but it was totally my lose because in hawaii we were in the rain forest, mosquitos galore, but in aruba we were oceanside. no mosquitos. oh well. it was very pretty though.

we met 2 girls from amsterdam, holland who had hiked their way to this natural pool from their resort. it took them about an hour on this rocky terrain and angelo felt bad for them and didn't want them to have to hike all the way back so he told them to hop on and we would drive them to wherever the heck they walked from. it was crazy. they couldn't remember the name of where they were staying but angelo knew the island so well that he got them to where they needed to be. they asked for our emails, but no one had any paper, and said if we were ever in holland to look them up and we would always have a place to stay. NO PAPER!