As Melissa and I are now married for 12 years, here’s a true story about how our honeymoon in Aruba ended.
Newlyweds in a foreign country, we had engaged in everything else that the Occidental Grand Aruba resort had to offer. We figured it was time to do up a casino, to roll the dice a bit.
We weren’t gamblers, but we were drunk after hours at the piano bar across the street, where the singer made fun of my fedora and called me Michael Jackson, and where I insisted on eating a Whopper at a neighboring Burger King to see if they tasted the same as in America.
So, my beautiful wife Melissa and I ambled into the casino, which was attached to the vast resort lobby, where a country western band was playing of all acts, and put a quarter into one of the simple slot machines.
Instant jackpot! $300 worth of coins came spitting out. I scurried off to grab a plastic cup before the coins overflowed the bin.
We cashed in and went to bed. We needed a good night’s sleep. For the next day, we were ditching the resort strips and going on an ATV tour with a group of people to see the northern rugged part of Aruba.
All of those touristy pamphlets that inundated every passageway had finally seeped into our sense of adventure. Another poolside day with piña coladas seemed boring at this point. The resort life was relaxing, but the relentless chilled out Thievery Corporation playing through the global speakers was just too perfect.
Marcos was waiting for us bright and early the next day, standing outside with his black SUV. He seemed a bit tired like us, as he opened the door so that we could sit in the back. He handed us a clipboard with release forms and we signed away as he said that it would “just be us two today”.
Aruba changes really fast once you leave the boulevards of resort strips. We were soon in a cramped suburban style neighborhood, where dirt and sand replaced the typical areas of grass. Marcos stopped at a house and we got out. He went into the garage and rolled out two ATVs and started analyzing the tires.
“Ya ever driven one of these before?” Marcos asked.
“Nope…Never have. But I see them in my neighborhood a lot,” I said.
The thought of me driving an ATV seemed unfaithful to my hatred of them. Outside my front door in Fishtown, young punks (and even guys in their 40s) would cruise around town, circling blocks, driving through stop signs, and annoying the fuck out of everybody, sometimes going the wrong way down a one-way street, sometimes on sidewalks. The louder the better it seemed. It was illegal to drive them, but cops did nothing as it was too dangerous to chase them.
I had some crafty plans though. Lay down a spike strip or perhaps clothesline them with, well, an actual clothesline as they drove by. That would do them in. Then there was shooting out their big targeted tires with a gun from my rooftop, but that would result in a blowout and some kid’s cranium on a windshield, and making more of a mess wasn’t the goal. Plus, I didn’t own or shoot a gun.
What was so lame about these punks and their “All Terrain Vehicles” is that they never left the asphalt roads of Fishtown. I knew the deafening roar of the engine echoing between the buildings was their goal, to frighten people and show everyone that they were tough and all that stupid masculine bullshit, but try enjoying listening to Billie Holiday in your living room with that roar constantly invading your mindset, and you’ll want to destroy them too. Any kid with a few hundred bucks could go to Pep Boys and get a Baja Motorsports 90cc ride, or work on their uncle’s hooptie and make it sound like Tyrannosaurus Rex is farting non-stop down the avenue. It’s a Fishtown plague.
And now here I was, about to hop on an ATV with Melissa clutching my waist and actually take on many terrains, as the vehicle intended. Marcos hooked us up with helmets and gave an instructional on the thumb accelerator and brakes.
Off we went! First, around town on the streets and then onto a sandy and pebbly road that slowly inclined towards Alto Vista Chapel, a tiny colorful building overlooking the north shore, where local Catholics make a pilgrimage to every Good Friday. We got off and investigated and took photos while the quiet Marcos quickly became bubbly and excited, full of information.
We then cruised down dunes and along the coast and checked out natural bridges made of rock formations, the Bushiribana Gold Mine Ruins, and a cool permanent art installation made solely of debris and trash that had washed ashore.
Marcos continually led the way, as we stayed a safe distance behind, tearing through seaside cliffs as mid-afternoon quickly approached. Without my sunglasses, I would have been blinded, as the sandy cloud of Marcos in front of me was tough enough to deal with.
After a couple hours into our tour, we were almost at the grand destination, which was the Natural Pool, a pool of seawater surrounded by rock and volcanic stone circles. It was the ultimate reward for the adventurist, as the only way to get there was via an ATV or a 4-wheel drive vehicle. We had seen the photos of it everywhere and were ready to sit in the postcard image of it.
The final stretch was of rocky terrain void of any path to follow. I kept a firm eye on Marcos up ahead, but at the same time focused on traversing the boulders and sporadic cactus. Use of the thumb accelerator became a game of exact precision as our body weight and my steering maneuvered us around the masses of tan stone.
Suddenly, I hit a stone that the tires couldn’t pass and found my body lunging forward through the air over the right side of the ATV. Melissa shrieked something to gain my attention. Control was completely lost,
I landed hard on my right side, scraping up my forearms, legs, and hip. I think I had hit my head as well, but the massive helmet saved me there. The wind was knocked out of me a bit, but the thick stench of gasoline startled my senses and I realized that the ATV was now upside down and partially on my body. I was able to slither out of it and stand up. Melissa was sitting a ways back on a boulder, holding her knee. Marcos was clambering over the rocks towards us while repeating “What happened? What did you do?”
And that’s when I started thinking…Exactly!…What the HELL am I doing? Why am I in some remote part of Aruba, far from any hospital or road, risking our lives after just getting married? Why are we now bleeding from our limbs in the scorching sun, far from our hotel? What kind of imbecile and irresponsible act is this?
One of Melissa’s knees was clearly in a lot of pain. We weren’t quite sure what the extent of our physical damage was. At first, I just wanted to turn around, but Marcos, who positioned the banged up ATV back into place, pointed out that we were quite close to the Natural Pool. I was worried that the ATV was destroyed and not able to be driven, but it was just fine.
Onward, we headed as I grew paranoid with every slight maneuver I had to make. Blood bubbled from scattered scrapes on my forearm as the bumpy ride tossed pain into my aching hip. Tiny pebbles were embedded in my skin. Immense fear grew over me as I thumbed the gear ever so slightly.
When we finally reached the Natural Pool area, we were greeted with a makeshift parking area and a series of stone steps to descend down. This wasn’t in the postcard! Marcos waited at the top as Melissa and I inched our way down the steps void of any bannister. This motion was especially difficult for Melissa and her damaged knee.
The color of the serene water in the Natural Pool was turquoise, surrounded by spiny rocks that you had to hop on to get to the water. Closer to the pool, the rocks were slippery with black crabs of all sizes wandering on them. Melissa and I looked at each other with disorientation and moved our bodies into the water, wondering if any bones on our bodies were broken.
An excited family was in the pool speaking Dutch, splashing about with their blond hair. I saw that they had taken a 4Ă—4 Jeep here. Well, that was smart, I thought.
Melissa and I treaded water, wondering how deep it went, and let the salt water clean our wounds with a slight sting. The massive waves crashed onto the rocks and poured into the Natural Pool. As the waves retreated back to the ocean, anything in its grasp could easily be sucked out to sea. We were told that these waves were so bad the previous day that the Natural Pool was closed.
On the long drive back to Marcos’s ATV garage, we ran into a clashing rally on the streets for one of the Aruban political parties. The general election was coming up in September. Yellow and green flags mixed with angry chants through megaphones made for an awkward getaway, as we had to drive on sidewalks that could barely fit the width of the ATV. The crowds were thick with the Papiamento language of the Caribbean, and here we were, a couple of tourists just dying to get back to our all-you-can-drink pool bar.
Finally at the hotel, and stripped of our clothes, we saw how bruised and battered we were…and could barely move without pain. We had one day left at the resort. So, we headed poolside and sat in the lounge chairs.
A girl came over next to me, positioned herself on a lounge chair, and started reading a book. I couldn’t help noticing her right leg was gnarled up with fresh wounds. I caught her eye and said, “ATV accident?”
“No…Jet skiing…” she said. “Just flew into some rocks. Had to get adventurous!”
At night, Melissa and I got drunk and went to one of the attached resort clubs where they were having a massive karaoke session, equipped with wireless microphones and a big stage.
One of the waitresses saw my arm and asked, “ATV accident?”
“Yep…Had to get adventurous.”
“Ahh, yeah, those things are more dangerous than they look.”
I eventually sang “Proud Mary” by Creedence Clearwater Revival, grinning through the pain, as our honeymoon came to an end. The season of the buzzing Fishtown ATVs was at its peak and awaiting my return back on Memphis Street.