Aruba. Jamaica. Ooh. I want to take ya.

So Nicole and I got back from Aruba Saturday night. It's been a whirlwind since, and I have tons of things to talk about, but some of those will have to wait for a later post. So I'll start here with things I learned from my trip to Aruba.

1: Aruba is not technically in the Caribbean.
The Beach Boys' famous song "Kokomo" really makes you think that it's close to Jamaica and the Bahamas, and that Key Largo and Montego are very close. But they're not. Aruba is 18 miles off the northern coast of Venezuela, and is not in the "Hurricane Belt" which is good for the island. Almost all the "natives" we met were actually from Columbia, and nearly everyone spoke Spanish and English, so that was interesting. Felt like California, only everyone was a bit darker. There were also quite a few black people - remnants from the Slave Trade, I was told. You can check it out on this map if you'd like. I also learned that Bermuda is right due north off the coast of North Carolina. North Carolina. So in January, it's freezing. Weird, huh? Yeah.

2. Aruba, though not technically in the Caribbean has the bluest water I've ever seen
So what if it's not in the Hurricane Belt. This water was probably the nicest I've ever seen (beating Hawaii by a slim margin). The sand was this pure white, like talcum powder, and the visibility when we went snorkeling was like 60 feet. It was astounding. If you want to see what I'm talking about, you can check out this picture, which I took from our hotel balcony.

3. Aruba is a desert wasteland
It's dry, flat, barren and dry. There is no natural water source on the island and the only thing that grows there natively is Aloe plants, which - as Jeff Rev pointed out - is just a cactus. Convenient that a plant that helps with sunburn actually grows where you need it. Wouldn't do much good if Aloe grew only in Canada, or something. But Aruba is just ugly and dry and dusty. In fact, when Christopher Columbus found it, he named it "Isla Inunitil" which means "Useless Island" because there was no food, water or gold. The Dutch picked it up somewhere in there, and now it's part of the Dutch West Indies.

4. UB40 is huge in the Caribbean
We heard a song by them almost everywhere we went. Weird.

More to come...