The Bent Page

Until recently there were very few good maps of Aruba. Yes, it is a small island. Nonetheless, you can get lost here, which can be fun or annoying depending upon your purpose. Well, I was in the Samsom Bookstore the other day and found this Guia di Caya, or street guide as it is known in English.

This is quite a good resource. For example: If you’re looking for your friend’s house, especially that friend who has invited you to visit his home in Aruba but told you it was EASY to find. He might have said, turn left at the Divi tree, right at the big rock, go about half a mile then turn right again by the third cactus on the left. If this is the case, you definitely want this book.

Seriously… let’s say you would like to buy a home on the island and you’ve been looking through the listings. You’ll be able to see individual neighborhoods, whether or not the roads are paved or packed dirt, and how they fit into the larger scheme of the island.

The page above shows the De Bruynewijk area of Savaneta. The red line in the center of the right page is the main highway. The gray lines are paved secondary roads and the yellow lines are dirt roads. As you can see, some house numbers are listed, but not all of them. You’ll also note that house numbers are not sequential. It is my quest to convince the powers that be in Aruba to name all the streets and assign sequential numbers. The lack of them plays havoc with deliveries. It’s quaint until you spend half a day waiting for something that could have arrived in mere minutes.

Once again, I found this book at the Samsom Book Store on L.G. Smith Boulevard, across from the container port. The book was situated on a series of shelves under the heading “Aruba History.” Cost was rather expensive, $25.00 US. Given the price of gasoline, it is probably well worth it.

Bon dia from Aruba.