Welcome to the windy island of Aurba, a haven for windsurfers. With lots to do, bring your entire family and get ready for the time of your life. Aruba offers miles and miles of glourious beaches, windsurfing, surfing, fishing, kayaking, hiking, long leisure walks, casinos, shopping, and much to do for the kids also.

 

BASIC FACTS

• Official Name- Aruba
• Capital- Oranjestad
• Total area- 193 sq km
• Government- parliamentary
• Climate- tropical marine; little seasonal temperature variation
• Population- 68,675
• Currency- 1 Aruban florin (Af.) = 100 cents
• Language- Dutch (official), Papiamento (a Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, English dialect), English (widely spoken), Spanish

 The island of Aruba was the home of the Arawak Tribe. Alonso de Ojeda claimed the island for Spain in 1499 though the King had little interest. They only used the Arawaks to work in their mines, paying as little as possible to ship them over. Bitterness and antoganism arose amist Spain and Holland which concluded in the Dutch appropriating the island in 1636. Near the closing of the 17th century, the Dutch began attempting to colonize Aruba. Due to the impecunious and bleakness of the soil, Aruba was absolved from plantation economics and the slave trade.

The Dutch used the island as a derivation of meat for other Dutch colonized islands in the Caribbean because of the desiccated landscape. Aruba tried to establish mines, but the mines proved to be unscucessful so Aruba focused on oil refining. In fact, they focused so hard on it that they spent great sums of money to build the largest refinery in the world on the southern part of the island.

In 1986 Aruba became an independent state within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Bad luck would soon strike. Aruba's oil refinery came severely close to closure, greatly on account of their neoteric level of sovereignty.

Whether you just want to relax on some of the many beautiful beaches or take a boat around the island, there always is a lot to do. Aruba has so many beaches. Some of the beaches that you have to see are:

A popular near by island that you must be sure to visit is De Palm Reef Island. Depending on how you want to travel depends largely on how much to bring. If you want to stay in an expensive to very expensive hotel you would be able to chose from someo of these hotels: Hyatt Regecy and the Divi Aruba Beach Resort. If you want to stay at a medium priced hotel the Manchano Beach, Talk of the Town, and the Vistalmer are the hotels to stay in.

As for restauraunts, they range just as much as the hotels do. Some very expensive to expensive restauraunts include Papiamento and the Chez Mathilde. Some medium ranged restauraunts include the Gasparito, La Paloma, or the Driftwood.

Something that you don't want to miss seeing is the De Olde Molen. This old windmill was first built in 1804 in Holland and then shipped to Aruba piece by piece and reconstructed in 1960. It now offers a moderately-priced restaurant that specializes in continental dining.

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The oldest building in the country, this Dutch fortress now houses the Historical Museum Aruba, where Caiquetio artifacts from the prehistoric past are now on display alongside of leftovers from the Dutch colonial period and other items of local interest.

 On the northern coast midway down the island lie the abandoned gold mines that were the center of Aruba's gold rush during the nineteenth century. Nearby sit the ruins of an old pirate castle that some say goes all the way back to 1499, the year that Alonso de Ojeda landed here.