Greencaviar Travel

Aruba is briefly mentioned in the book, “1000 Places To See Before You Die.”   Together with Bonaire and Curaçao it forms a group referred to as the ABC islands of the Leeward Antilles.  And Aruba is the “A” in the ABC of a group of islands. According to my tour map, “Aruba is 19.6 miles in length and 6 miles across its widest point and is well-known for being safely outside the hurricane belt. It has 15 miles of beach, many 5-star hotels and casinos along the beach and plenty of air plane and ship wreck dive sites." I did not have to reference the map to explore the town or the whole island. Downtown Oranjestad (the capital of Aruba) was just a few steps from the Cruise Ship Terminal and was walkable. The building architecture gave the place a unique character. Malls, casinos and hotels, upscale shops, jewelry stores and souvenir stalls lined the main road. I went inside the mall just to do comparison shopping. There were hardly any shoppers except for a few...

photo by the author As soon as our tour bus pulled out from the port parking lot , I saw a bunch of Toyota cars that appeared to have just been unloaded from a cargo ship . The area looked as if it were an industrial port complex . Our bus immediately exited the port area , heading towards the Tarcoles River. It was during this time that our tour guide , Eddy, started his “Did you know questions …” to introduce us to Costa Rica. He said that Costa Rica has a mark on almost everything that we consumed in the US - from banana chips to computer chips . In my travels, I have been drawn to the beautiful landscape and countryside more than the big city. There were no shopping or commercial buildings outside the port area. All of a sudden I felt I was seeing the real thing, we were traveling through tropical forest. The rain spattered on and off. Eddy talked about the Tarcoles River and the crocodiles, and showed us a video ab...

Cruising is my least preferred way of travel. But in order to have a full transit experience of crossing the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean through the Panama Canal, I booked myself on a Holland America Cruise. I knew very little about the history of the canal, except that it’s an engineering marvel. I’m sure there are many books written about this subject, but the tagline from a promotional video, “… to create a canal to join the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean…to cut the continent in half and carve a waterway on one of the most astounding and unforgiving terrain on earth ”, pretty much summed up the wonders of Panama Canal for me. Luckily we had a travel guide, Wallis with a PhD in geophysics, on board. She shared a few “Did you know…” questions, and explained the Canal’s history, construction, and the step-by-step process of going through the canal. The scale of Panama Canal is astonishing: The canal runs through Panama North to South, connecting the Caribbean Sea (No...