This is our rental car in front of the Serio Colorado lighthouse in Aruba in 2006 when we were there on the Holland American cruise ship Maasdam.



When we got off the ship, the taxi drivers only wanted to take us to the California lighthouse (named for the wreck of a ship named California) where he went last time. They insisted that there was no lighthouse at Serio Colorado, and that it would take an hour to go down there and an hour to come back. They wanted $40 and hour to take us there and another $40 to bring us back.

In addition to looking up the lighthouses, I had looked up the rental car rates, and we could have pre-booked on the internet for $32/day. But Bob had been against that, even though they drive on the right. When he heard what the taxi drivers wanted, he decided that renting a car was a good idea after all. So we went back to the car rental places at the dock. The first one in the line was Hertz and the lady was saying that she had only one car, a station wagon. Other people who had been asking her apparently wanted a smaller car, and also wanted to keep it to 8 or 9 oclock (the boat didn't leave until 10 pm). So they left.

I asked how much it was ($60) and whether she would give us a AAA discount which was in the AAA book. She said she would give us 5%, and did we want the car. I said yes. The other people came back and were negotiating with her also, and she asked if we were together. I said no. We got the car and they didn't.

We drove south (it is easy to drive along the west side of the island) while I was trying to decipher the road signs. Some were easy to figure out (stop, no left turn), but some were unfamiliar to me. A yellow/orange diamond meant that it was a right-of-way road. A triangle bordered in red with a big black vertical line with a little cross in the middle mean that you have the right of way at the intersection.

I had a little difficulty with the frequently seen signs that had two cars next to each other, the right one black and the left one red. I discovered that this one meant "No passing". And a dark blue circle rimmed in red with a red slash across it was "No Stopping or Parking".



First we went around the oil refinery which took up almost the whole west side of the south end of the island. The little town of Serio Colorado was almost completely engulfed by it and we never did get to it. We knew that Baby Beach (so called because the shallow water goes out a long way) was in the area, and we headed in that direction.

When we got to the coast, we saw a large red anchor, and we could see the lighthouse from here, so we headed for it. The road was indeed narrow and surprisingly winding considering that Aruba is such a flat island.



It was a very arid area. I saw at least two kinds of lizards - one brown and one a brilliant teal. They were very hard to take a picture of because they moved so fast (as I would if I was barefoot on the hot ground). The rocks were a rusty color - it was almost as though the ground was made of iron which had rusted.

In addition to the pipe organ cactus and the prickly pear cactus there appeared to be two barrel shaped cactus, and we even saw several different birds. One was a dove type bird and the other one looked sort of like a Baltimore oriole in that it had some orange on it. I think it was a Scotts Oriole.


After we went to the collapsed Natural Bridge and had a bite to eat, we did drive up to the California lighthouse - this isn't our car in front of it but it is FROM our car.