Ai Ai Ai Ai, Ariba Aruba

Straight up: Aruba isn´t a backpacking place. It simply isn´t.
We`ve now spend about 2hrs in a free Wifi Bar to find if there are Hostels or Couchsurfer willing to accomodate us and so far we failed.
The cheapest place we finally found was a Hotel called „Hotel California“, which unfortunately was neither cheap nor comfortable.

Located directly beside a Club it was mainly used by hookers to earn their living more efficiently by cutting distances between pick up and, well, their office…

Upon arrival we dropped our luggage and Chris and I headed out to have a beer towards 12pm to celebrate into my birthday.

We ended up in a bar solely run by dutch fugetives who switched over from Holland due to a nicer climate. After we told them where we were staying, the ice was broken and constant laughing and giggleling were their birthday present to me.

In the end, the staff took us to a local bar to have a few more beers and to celebrate my birthday properly. The place was called „Lekker“ and was almost empty, but still we were introduced to at least 50 different people, witnessed a fight between our tour guide „Kal“ and a girls’ ex-husband, that Kal had knocked up earlier that year and later and finally went to another bar somewhere close to our hotel. There we drank to Leo, a friend of Kal´s who accidently got in the earlier mentioned fight and thus had his „fist-fight“ cherry popped…

In total a fun night… ^^

The next day we wanted to meet out friend Mikey, who was on Aruba to celebrate his best friends’ wedding. So we took the bus from Oranjestaad and drove to Noord, where all the big ass hotels and touristy attractions are. Of course he stayed in the Westin, a massive building with huge pool area, white sanded beach access and crystal clear water.

We met up, hung out and played volleyball all day besides updating each other with latest events and achievements.
Honestly, I cannot remember  when I had such a relaxed and laid back birthday, ever. Really good times.

The follwonig days we hung out with Mikey some more but also had a trip over the island to see some touristy stuff. Unfortunately, Aruba isn´t a backpackers place, so either you got heaps of cash to fund your travels here, or you simply don´t see interesting stuff…
Well, we went fort he latter option and decided to hang out more at Mikeys place and play some more volleyball or to crush the Westin´s internally organised animation program. Among these were a Hot Dog eating contest (upon winning I asked to get a free drink for every participant in the game) and Beer Bobbing, which basically means „collecting free flowing beer cans from the pool.
The rewards fort hese games were the strongest (and hence most disgusting) Caipirinha ever, and about 7 free Beer Cans from the pool bobbing.

Well, backpackers on a shoestring need to be creative to get their booze… :D

Despite this beautiful location, we kinda figured after 6 days that Aruba is ripping deep holes into our pockets and we should probably continue to one of the 13 countries in south america to cut expenses. That day we went to a few flight and travel agencies and were lucky to find a 130$ flight to Medellin/ Colombia, which departed 4 hours later that day. Motivated by the prospects of cheap food, drinks and accommodation (every night costed 20$ per person in that „Hoe-tel California“), so we packed and headed to the airport.

Cocaine Country, here we come, show me what you got!!!