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Exploring Aruba 3: Caves of Arikok & Madame Janette

April 10, 2025

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Exploring Aruba 2: Southern Beaches, San Nicolas, Sunset Steps

April 02, 2025

Sunny, breezy Aruba is truly a delight to visit! On our first full day, we snorkeled a mangrove-lined beach, took the mosaic Stairs into the Sea, relaxed at Baby Beach, explored the art and dining scene in San Nicolas, and drove on a quest to see the other side of the Seroe Colorado natural bridge, only to find wild, windy wave-polished ledges that felt like the edge of the world!

Rodger's Beach near Stairs into the Sea

Seroe Colorado Natural Arch

Cactus "forest"

Octopus by Odeith, 2017, that apparently represents Tito Bolivar, with Paul Wong’s ‘Mi Forsa’ in background.

Southeastern coastline just north of the Seroe Colorado Natural Bridge

Sunset from top of Hooiberg

We had selected the small boutique hotel Serene by the Sea so we could stay on the quieter side of the island, populated more by local residents than tourists. With that in mind, we spent our first day exploring the southern beaches, rugged coastlines and the artsy, historic town of San Nicolas.

Then, after showers and a break, we headed to the central part of the island for wonderful sunset views from the second highest point in Aruba, followed by dinner in the Oranjestad port area.

Mangel Halto Beach

Our first stop was Mangel Halto. This is a lovely beach with lots of shade from the green mangroves lining the shore. The few thatched shelters were already claimed when we arrived around 10:20 am, so we picked a quiet alcove formed by mangroves.

I had read that the current runs from the left to the right, when facing the sea, so we walked over the little wooden bridge to use the curved, sandy beach on the left to enter the water.

Sandy beach to the left, with a few rocks to get past. Although it looks calm in this photo, there were some white caps that made it to shore.

The water stays shallow pretty far out, and the water was nice and clear. We planned to snorkel with the current and return to shore in the bay to the right with the wooden dock.

Shallow, but dead reef against which the fish really stood out. Photo by TO.

Mangel Halto is considered by several bloggers to be the best snorkeling in Aruba. However, you do have to swim out a ways to get to living coral. On this day, the winds were running at 18-20 mph, and I was the only one with flippers. So we decided not to venture towards the sandy cuts through the reef.

We saw lots of large green stoplight parrotfish in their terminal phase coloration. There were also some more drab fish that reminded me of the Rainbow Fish after it had given away all of its scales. It turns out that these are younger stoplight parrotfish in their initial coloration phase.

Stoplight parrotfish in their colorful terminal phase, as well as more subtle grey initial phase parrotfish in the back. That orangey fish to the right might be a rainbow parrotfish.