Aruba Ta Dushi — sam way explores

I love exploring new places by bike and have done bicycle tours or rented bicycles in Reykjavik, Iceland; New Orleans, Louisiana; Denver, Colorado; Portland, Oregon; and Naples, Florida (this doesn’t include the more local trips, where I can usually bring my own bike to do some riding).

I recently traveled to Aruba for vacation and decided to take advantage of the country’s bike share program, GreenBike. They have a lot of these stations scattered along the West coast of the island but the majority of them seemed to be located along the bicycle path near all of the hotels on the more Northern part of the island. Since I happened to be staying in one of those hotels, I was lucky enough to have a bicycle docking station right near me!

Aruba has some bicycle infrastructure, though not much. When I could, I stayed on the bicycle paths. When I couldn’t, I did whatever I had to. The docking station that was near me made it easy to start my ride on the Oranjestad-Palm Beach bike trail.

The bicycles weren’t in the best shape but I imagine it would be difficult to maintain them since they are exposed to saltwater year round (a lot of the docking stations are located right next to the beaches, which are public across the entire island). I did my best to find a bike with the most tread and pressure in the tires, which was more difficult than I would have wanted since all of the tires seemed under inflated and not in the best shape. Then I was off!

I cross-referenced the Oranjestad-Palm Beach bike path with Strava to see where I could continue the ride when the path ended, and decided to head North on the trail.

I hadn’t done enough research and put all my trust into those dark blue lines on Strava so it turns out that the bike path ended MUCH sooner than I would have thought. But I kept going, figuring I would just ride to the Northern end of the island before turning around to head back to the hotel. As the bike path ended, I rode in the streets when I could but often, there was no shoulder and I had to ride on the side of the road. No problem, let’s do some gravel in Aruba!

I was having the time of my life riding that little patch of dirt on the side of the road until I realized that the local flora was in attack mode:

I then opted to hop back into the road and take my chances with traffic.

I made my way through town, which was still empty given the time, and eventually reached a boardwalk along one of the public beaches. It turns out that bikes are not permitted on the boardwalk - RUDE. Back to the streets I went!

I kept on my way, stopping for photos and breaks at the beaches that I passed every so often.

Eventually, I reached a scenic coastal road, with a sign indicating the direction of the California Lighthouse. I could see the lighthouse from this road, wayyyyy up on a hill. Given my hatred for elevation gains, it was fairly ironic that I was about to be riding up one of the only hills on a generally FLAT island.

The coastal road leading to the lighthouse was secluded, with public beaches scattered to the left, and the sand dunes looming straight ahead. While riding through this area, I got a peak at some really varied and interesting landscapes.

Obviously, I’m being dramatic about this hill because it really wasn’t THAT big of a climb, but a few passersby in cars and ATVs (yes, ATVs for the sand dunes that I mentioned) looked at me like I was crazy for riding up it on a GreenBike. Oh well.

I spent some time up here, enjoying a fresh coconut smoothie and the macaw that kept attacking tourists who wanted to take pictures with it.

The ride back down was obviously more enjoyable and also afforded an alternate view from the coastal road. I headed back South to return to the bike path and explore a bit more. I wound up finding a section of it right outside of town, that I had missed on the way out.

Upon getting back to the area of the path where I started, I found the map, which displayed the bicycle infrastructure around the island. It was here that I realized I had ridden in the opposite direction of where most of the infrastructure was…

So, after figuring that out, I kept on riding South, despite my pressing desires to either exchange the bike at a different docking station for one with more pressure in the tires or, give up altogether and take an electric scooter the rest of the way. When I tried the former, I found that there were no bikes with more pressure than the one I was riding and even though electric scooters were ample, I committed myself to keeping with the GreenBike (though I did come to regret this when I fell victim to some terrible saddle sores by the end of the ride).

In the end, I’m glad I spent so much time at the Northern end of the island. While it was nice to be able to ride on a designated bike path, the Southern portion of the trail strayed from the beach and it was a lot of riding past hotels and other less interesting sites.

I was going to turn around soon so I decided to get off the trail and follow a road along the beach. I parked the bike and hung out by the water for a few minutes.

After, I tried and failed at a photo shoot, using a large boulder to prop up my phone.

I am heavily in favor of bringing back skorts.

Then a man from Connecticut asked me to take a picture of him in front of the “I ❤️ Aruba” sign, so I did that and he also took some of me but they were terrible, so here’s the GreenBike in front of it:

It was getting hotter and my saddle sores were getting worse so it was about time to wrap it up and head back up to my hotel to hit the beach for the rest of the day. My GreenBike was returned and re-docked without incident, which is not something I can always say for CitiBikes.

See below for a PSA about staying hydrated. I was trying to take a picture of the grease I managed to get on my arm, but instead you clearly notice my desperate need for water from the shape my lips are in: