The ABC Islands are 3 of five Dutch islands that are similar to provinces.

Aruba is an island that is proud of its multi-culturalism. Those people that are born here speak a minimum of 4 languages and it is not uncommon for many to have as many as 10 languages. It was amazing to watch. As a part of the Kingdom of th Netherlands, Dutch is the official language for government and public institutions such as schools but Papiamento is the language spoken on the 3 islands.

It was explained to us that the language is a language brought by the slaves from an area called Verde in South Africa. Over time the influence of Spanish and Portugese also mixed to create a very unique language.

We decided to rent a car and geocache our way through the island.

Aruba is the smallest and most westerly of the ABC group. It lies 25 km north of Venezuela and 68 km west of Curacao.

It is one of the very few Caribbean islands on which the Indian population was not exterminated however there are not full blooded Indigenous now as they have mixed with the Spanish and Dutch blood. African slaves were never introduced in Aruba.

Gold was discovered in 1725 and it would be our first geocache to go looking for. The Balashi Gold Smelter Ruins . We dropped off a Travel Bug and picked one up to continue its journey.

Santa Cruz mid island was a reminder of the economic crises that is effecting the whole world. Many businesses are shut down and buildings just left for the environment to reclaim. The sight of KFC, McDonalds surprised us as we haven't seen anything like this in smaller towns. The people living around this area are larger than elsewhere on the island so I would say they frequent the restaurants.

The Arikok National Park, a natural preserve covers one fifth of the island was our next geocache stop. The park contains forty species of trees and hearty desert vegetation that survive blazing sun and constant wind. Cacti in all shapes and sizes cover this desert landscape.

The area contains many snakes which luckily we only saw in the glass containers at the interpretive station. We did get to have a glimpse at the wild donkeys, many lizards and iguanas.

This area is rugged red dirt roads with valleys, ravines, terraces leading to the North shore with its natural bridges carved out by the pounding surf.

Aruba has caves that contained Indian Rock drawings. Natural light penetrates these caves so you can see around without flashlights.

We were pre-warned not to park on the sand dune sands as it acts like quick sand and they loose a few cars a year. All in all this area was beautiful.

As our journey continued north we passed the Ayp Rock Formations that are vey large rocks also used by the Inigenous people of the past. I am not quite sure how these huge rocks appear here. If we were in Canada I would say glacier waters moved them here but I do not believe that our iceage came this far south.

Bushinbans Ruins contained another cache and it was here that gold was smelted. There are many buildings still standing. They were built from stone in the 1700's and were used until the early 1900's when the mines were abandoned. The mines themself were about 20 km away from the smelter.

Alto Vista Chapel was our next cache and tourist spot. The view was outstanding and the little chapel charming. Ken went to retrieve this cache on his own as I was covered in burs. TB successfuly retrieved and we left a Canadian Geocoin to continue on traveling the world.

The town of Noord would be our next stop. What we all realized at this stage was that there were no shacks and windows no longer contained bars. The houses were individual not all together as has been the case since Mexico. The island is very clean with no plastic garbage littering the environment. The houses are all very colourful.

Next we ventured to the California Lighthouse. This lighthouse was named after a boat that crashed into the reefs in the night. The passenges started to through their belongings overboard and entered into the water when the locals came to the rescue. As it turns out the Ship the Californian was the ship that did not come to help the Titanic on that fateful night.

Oranjestad is the capital of Aruba. The population is about 25,000. The cruise ship business is alive and well here. We watched a minimum of 4 ships a day arrive.

The buildings in the city are very colourful and clean. They have a European look. Tourism is their number one industry so the usual Casinos are found in most of the High end hotels.

Fishing tours are plenty full and we watched as the Wahoo were being brought in, in record numbers. This only excites Ken in the hope to catch another Wahoo.

We are currently sitting in Caracao and will write about it next week. As it has taken me 2 hrs fighting with the internet, I will down load the pictures when I have better service.

I am adding the pictures to the new blog it may work better.