My first thought when I woke this
morning was this: the sun is on the wrong side.
East is not east. My north is
south.
I have been upended!
When I flung back the curtains at the sliding
glass door of our room and looked outside, I saw Aruba for the first time in
daylight. My thought then: Wow!
We are on something of a rise above
and away from a row of hotels and white sand beaches. Behind and slightly above us, tall cactus
have grown into a forest. When I stepped
outside, I was bathed immediately in warm humid air. I retrieved my camera and tried to snap a
picture, but the lens instantly fogged.
I heard strange birds singing sharply, beautifully from the cactus and
heard a rooster “cock-a-doodle-doo” from a small house below.
We have rented a villa for ten
days. No, a castle! Our villa is stunning.
We had a bit of trouble finding our
way here for three reasons. First, we
did not leave the airport until almost 10:30 at night. Second, Google Maps is very confused
here. Third, street signs are not high
on anyone’s priority on this particular island.
If you ask locals for directions,
which we did, you are told something like this: “Follow the row of hotels until
you get to a streetlight with a Wendy’s on one side and a Texaco station of the
other. Turn right onto that street and
drive until you see a Chinese restaurant…”
We had a grand time getting lost (not kidding)
on the way to our villa. We finally
arrived at our house after midnight.
Posted today are a few photographs from last night and this morning.
-- Mitchell
Hegman
Street signs: sounds like everywhere in the world except for the US and Canada. I remember in the Emirates that all directions were given in relation to a nearby traffic circle named for the statue in the middle of each of them. When you looked in the phone book for a name instead of an address you saw a PO Box number.
ReplyDeleteYou look like you are in a place for many memorable "adventures".
Sounds like what we got!
DeleteExcept one time I heard your cousin tell an out-of-towner looking for directions to "go past where the root beer stand used to be". So maybe it's more universal than you might think.
ReplyDeleteProbably so!
DeleteExcept one time I heard your cousin tell an out-of-towner looking for directions to "go past where the root beer stand used to be". So maybe it's more universal than you might think.
ReplyDelete