Aruba: Ten Attractions and Natural Wonders

Two islands in one

Aruba, the westernmost of the Dutch "ABC" islands off the coast of Venezuela, has two completely different coasts. The leeward southwest is where the postcards come from: long, calm, blindingly white beaches and a reliable trade wind. The windward northeast is the opposite — a battered limestone shore of cliffs, blowholes, and cactus scrub, most of it now inside a national park. The interior is dry desert studded with boulder fields and gold-mining ruins.

The ten places below cover both sides. The island is small and flat; a hire car or a Jeep tour opens up the wild half, and the beaches are a short drive from the hotels. It is dry and sunny almost year-round, and hurricanes rarely reach it.

1. Eagle Beach

Eagle Beach, on the low-rise stretch of the west coast, is regularly rated among the best beaches in the world: a very wide band of soft white sand, calm shallow water, and — crucially — no wall of high-rise hotels, just low resorts set back behind the dunes. Its wind-bent trees are among the most photographed sights on the island.

As the widest beach on the island, it never feels as crowded as its neighbour Palm Beach because there is simply more room.

2. Palm Beach

Palm Beach is the other half of the resort coast: calm water backed by the big-name high-rise hotels, casinos, piers, and restaurants. This is where the parasailing, banana boats, sunset cruises, and swim-up bars are, and where the island feels busiest.

Just offshore lies the wreck of the Antilla, a German freighter scuttled in 1940 and a popular dive site.

3. Arikok National Park

Arikok covers much of the wild northeast of the island: a landscape of columnar cactus, aloe, divi-divi, and eroded lava hills, with the island's high point (Jamanota, 188 metres) and a coastline of cliffs and coves pounded by open Atlantic swell. Inside are the limestone caves of Fontein and Quadirikiri, with Arawak rock paintings at Fontein, old cunucu farmhouses, and abandoned gold mines at Miralamar.

The tracks are rough — a 4x4 is really needed, or a guided Jeep or ATV tour — and the coves (Conchi, Boca Prins, Dos Playa) face rough open sea.

4. The California Lighthouse

At the far northwestern point of the island, this lighthouse, completed around 1916, stands on a limestone plateau near the Sasariwichi dunes with a 360-degree view — the calm hotel coast on one side, the wild windward shore on the other. It is named after the SS California, which sank nearby in 1891.

The area around it, Hudishibana, is a favourite sunset spot, with a restaurant beside the lighthouse and Arashi Beach close by.

5. The Natural Pool (Conchi)

On the battered northeast shore, a circle of black volcanic rock encloses a pool of calm, clear water while the ocean crashes over the barrier behind it. This is the Conchi, or Natural Pool — a rare sheltered pool on the wild coast, and a reward for the effort of getting there.

There is no road: you reach it on a rough 4x4 track, on a guided horseback ride, or on a fairly demanding hike. Most people come on an organised Jeep or UTV tour that combines it with the caves and the gold-mill ruins.

6. Alto Vista Chapel

A small, vivid-yellow Catholic chapel stands by itself in the cactus on the north coast, reached by a winding lane lined with white crosses. The current building is from 1952, but it marks the spot where the Venezuelan missionary Domingo Antonio Silvestre and the island's Caquetio people built what is said to be Aruba's first church, in 1750.

Local Catholics still walk here from Oranjestad on Good Friday, and the quiet, the sea view, and the approach road make it a worthwhile stop on a north-coast loop.

7. The Ayo and Casibari rock formations

In the middle of the island, two clusters of enormous rounded boulders rise unexpectedly from the flat scrub — Ayo and Casibari, a few kilometres apart. The Ayo boulders are diorite and the Casibari ones tonalite; the Arawak left rock drawings at both sites.

Both have short trails and steps threading up between and over the boulders to viewpoints across the island. Both are easy stops on a drive across the interior.

8. Bushiribana Gold Mill and the north coast

Gold was found on Aruba in 1824, and for the rest of the century it was a serious business. The roofless stone hulk of the Bushiribana gold mill, built in 1825, still stands on the windward coast, its walls and arches framing the sea — a popular photo stop on the rough coastal track.

Further along the coast are the remains of Aruba's famous Natural Bridge, a coral-limestone arch that collapsed in September 2005. The other gold ruin is the Balashi smelter of 1899, in the south.

9. Baby Beach and San Nicolas

At the far southeastern end of the island, Baby Beach is a shallow, man-altered lagoon — calm and waist-deep on the inside, which makes it the family and beginner-snorkelling beach. There is a snack stand; most of the fish gather near the inlet, where the water deepens.

The nearby town of San Nicolas, once the company town for a huge oil refinery, has reinvented itself with more than 50 hand-painted street murals, and is worth a wander.

10. Oranjestad and Fort Zoutman

Aruba's capital is a small, walkable port town of Dutch-Caribbean architecture painted in sherbet colours, with a tram running down the main street from the cruise dock. Its oldest structure is Fort Zoutman, completed in 1798, with the Willem III Tower — part lighthouse, part clock tower — added in 1868; together they have housed the Historical Museum of Aruba since 1983.

Add the shopping street of Caya Betico Croes and the weekly Bon Bini Festival of music and food at the fort, and the town is an easy half-day.

Aruba is a short trip that splits neatly in two: a few days on the calm coast for the beaches, and one hard day in a Jeep on the wild side for everything else.