Aruba & Curacao, January 2018

It has been over six months since I’ve been outside the United States, so itchy feet are setting in again. Where to go this time around? While I’m always eager for long trips, I’m still somewhat reluctant to travel to far away or to make plans too far in advance because of my mother’s late-stage Alzheimer’s Disease. A couple islands in the Caribbean seems like a good choice for early January, especially since the northeastern U.S. has been experiencing one of its longest cold spells in history late December into early January. I guess Aruba is a spot in the Caribbean with a major tourist industry since it’s once of the few smaller Caribbean islands where I was able to find timeshare trade availability during the high winter season. I’m not usually too much of a beach person, but I’m looking forward to the week and decided to tack on a few days to see neighboring Curacao, a neighboring Dutch Antillean island with a historic city as well as more beaches. Together with Bonaire the islands make up the “ABC group” just a little north of the South American coast, but the B will have to wait for another time since I’ll just be hitting the A and the C this trip. I was somehow under the impression that Aruba was an independent country and that I’d be able to add it to my list as my 89th national conquest. Not so! While it was apparently on its way to independence some time ago, Aruba abandoned that quest in 1994 and remains part of the Netherlands Antilles. I guess the financial benefits of the status quo were just too good.

Planned Dates

2018-01-06 to 2018-01-16

Countries

2