But, first, Happy Valentine's Day! Princess, the original Love Boat cruise line, makes a point of recognizing the holiday of love, and started the celebration last evening, with a Valentines Day greeting on the bed all with heart-shaped pillow chocolates.
There was more planned for later in the day, but you'll just have to wait to hear about that. ;-)
What we wanted to do today- if the weather was good, if our bodies allowed us to, if we were in the mood- was to climb Mount Hooiberg in Aruba. Hooiberg means haystack in English (for obvious reasons) and, at 541 feet tall, is the second (or third) highest mountain on Aruba. Now, you know that we've been wanting to do this for years, but the groundwork was so perfectly laid for us by cruise friend Steve and his daughter Valerie on their Crown Princess cruise last December that we had no more excuses. Steve and Valerie had figured out, with the help of a hospitable hotel employee waiting at the Arubus station, exactly which bus to take and how to go to get to the base of the mountain. Steve then provided us exquisitely detailed notes (he did everything but draw us a picture, but he did provide lots of descriptive photos). It could not have been any clearer if he had stood in front of us and said, "Follow me!", and so we had no trepidations about finding our way there. Getting ourselves up the mountain- yes. But getting to the mountain- no.
Now, if we were smart mountain climbers, we would have bounded out of bed well before the Emerald Princess docked in Aruba at 7am, fueled up with a nutritious breakfast, and been walking off the ship as soon as possible. We are definitely not smart mountain climbers. What we did was lay in bed until 9ish, ate cereal and fruit in the Horizon Court Buffet, and then returned to our cabin to decide what we needed for our adventure. Most of the beach-related things came out of my backpack, but we added lots of water bottles (and could have used more). We counted out exact change- $2.30pp each way- for the bus, and finally left the ship close to 11am.
The Emerald Princess was docked ahead of the Noordam today in Oranjestad, which gave us a slightly longer distance to walk to get to the bus terminal, but, in light of what we were about to do, this hardly bears mentioning. Steve's instructions told us to take the L3 bus towards Santa Cruz, and the bus lanes are nicely labeled with bus numbers and schedules, so we had no issue finding where we needed to wait.
Luckily, we had only about a 10 minute wait for the 11:10am bus, and, once on board, we asked the driver to let us know when we got to (per Steve's directions) the Well Well Bar and the stop for the Water Park. G also asked the lady sitting next to us to do the same thing, for good measure.
Aubus buses (along with Barbados buses) are the closest thing we find to buses at home:
After only 10 or 12 minutes, the lady next to us told us that we needed to get off at the next stop (bushalte #20), right in front of the Well Well Bar.
And here I must offer an amusing sidebar:
On my first stops on both Aruba and Curaçao, I was cruising alone. I rented a 4x4 for the day on both islands, and headed out. On Aruba, my morning goal was to get to Arikok National Park, and so I drove southeast down the coast, passing through several small towns. I kept seeing signs for Bushaltes. Repeatedly, I would see the sign, but never anything so obvious as a bench or anything. I kept playing it over and over in my mind. Bush alte. Bush alte. (Mom, it was Ausfart in Germany all over again, though this time I was pretty sure it wasn't a city). I could not figure it out (though in my defense I was being bombarded by Dutch signs and never-before-seen traffic signs). I took until the afternoon of the second day, when I finally saw someone waiting next to the sign, for me to figure out it was a Bus Stop. It was Bus halte, not Bush alte. Well, duh...
Anyway, back to today...
Just as we stepped off the bus, the longest funeral profession I've ever seen started to go by. And, following that, the traffic was horribly backed up. It took us nearly 15 minutes just to cross the street to begin our walk.
Finally, a break in the traffic, with our destination in the background:
We turned left off the road the bus had been on, and headed north. The landscape was desert-dry, and full of cactuses.
The street ended at a T in the road, and we turned right per Steve's directions. All along this way, the fact that we had detailed directions and photos on my iPhone brought us huge comfort that we were going the right direction. 'Cause this wasn't exactly a touristy area!
After about a mile's walk, we encountered the water park sign that Steve had mentioned would be our "trailhead", and the green sidewalk and steps to its right.
Almost immediately, we stopped at a shelter and talked with a Dutch couple who were staying on the island for six weeks and doing this climb everyday for exercise. That they appeared older than both of us gave me hope that this might be doable...
We didn't dawdle...it was almost noon and 86 degrees out, and it wasn't going to get any cooler anytime soon. And so we started out, counting the steps to take our minds off the climb.
Part way up was another, smaller shelter, and we allowed ourselves a quick stop there for a water break:
Somewhere around stair 250 or so was a short section with a handrail, and that was a welcome change.
Looking down:
And the top 100 or so stairs were slightly shaded, and that helped too:
It was a hot, humid and hazy day, and that was reflected in my photos from the top. It's not a pretty summit, by any means. It contains several buildings with radio and communication transmitters. But by working our way through the cactuses to several overlooks, we had views of the entire island.
The Emerald Princess and the Noordam:
The northern coast of the island with the Atlantic Ocean in the distance:
Our final step count was 563 steps, plus 30 more at the bottom (the green steps), for a total of 593. But since there was still some climbing to do at the very top, we've decided to call it 599 steps, which, I must say, was a helluva lot harder to climb than the 99 steps to Black Beard's castle on St. Thomas.
Coming back down, though obviously easier and faster, was also a bit unnerving. As G helpfully pointed out, if we fell, we'd tumble down forever, and then land on a cactus. He's such a motivator!
We backtracked to bus stop #21, across the street from #20. A lady waiting there told us the next bus wouldn't be for nearly 30 minutes, but that there were frequent private buses coming by. We caught one of these almost immediately, for less than $3 total (with a bit of Aruban change returned), and rode back to Oranjestad, where we disembarked behind the Renaissance Hotel. We managed to get a bit of slow wifi at the Starbucks in the Renaissance Mall, and returned to the ship shortly after 3pm.
G immediately left the cabin to get pizza, but I was more interested in getting showered and dressed for the evening. Sailaway found us on the Promenade Deck drinking Gin and Tonics, and remarking over and over again when we saw Mount Hooiberg in the distance, "We climbed THAT!" It's something we'll remember forever. Once a year is plenty for me, but G is already making noises about our next time.
We had a glass of wine at Vines while we were waiting for a group renewal of vows in the Piazza at 6pm, led by JJ, the cruise director, because an emergency had the captain up in the bridge. Only 30 or so minutes out of Aruba, we had to turn around to meet up with the pilot boat. Two passengers and their luggage were transferred while the ship was still at sea, a highly unusual occurrence. All we can figure is that someone must have had an emergency at home and couldn't wait for two days to get a flight home from Fort Lauderdale.
We had dinner, but postponed dessert and a bottle of champagne until after the 7:15pm performance of vocalist Kimberly Locke (from the second season of American Idol) in the Princess Theater. Following dessert, we returned to our cabin. I'm going to publish this post, but might go out again this evening to watch Sleepless in Seattle, a Valentine's special on MUTS. Maybe. If I can get a burst of energy. Probably not.
Two sea days are up next, and I cannot wait for at least one of them. This has been a fun and active cruise! Keep your fingers crossed for calm seas and following winds.