Author: Traveling Rockhopper

Why to go to Aruba?
The simple answer is to relax. 🙂

There are two official languages in Aruba, i.e., Dutch and Papiamento.
Papiamento is a mixture of a few languages, mostly Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch.

Fortunately, the majority of Arubans can speak also English and Spanish. 🙂

I was flying to Aruba from a nearby island called Curacao.
The flight was very short and done with this small aircraft. I found it very funny that pilots can open the window in their cabin, so I had to take this picture. 😀

Aruba is a very popular destination of cruise ships, especially from USA. They usually visit a few Caribbean island.

There are two ways of getting to Aruba: you can fly or take a cruise ship. What’s interesting, there is no ferry service between Aruba and nearby countries.

The Aruban flag looks relatively simple, however everything what’s there, together with the colors, has its own meaning! E.g., the blue color represents the sea, yellow – island, red – love for the country and white – “snow-white” beaches. Check for more information aruba.com.

Aruba has a very nice weather for tourists. In general, its climate is tropical, but without extremes, e.g., no hurricanes. The average temperature is 28 degrees Celsius.

Aruba has its own currency called the Aruban Florin (AWG or Afl).
However, the US dollars are widely accepted so there is no need to exchange USD to AWG.

Aruba is an independent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Aruba has a bit complicated status, e.g., Aruba doesn’t belong to the Netherlands Antilles.
Aruba’s citizens have Dutch nationality.
Aruba is not a member of the European Union.
Etc. 😉

This month is dedicated to everyone who misses sunny, warm days 🙂

Welcome to Caribbean island called Aruba. 🙂

January is almost over as well as our Australian travel impressions.
Australia is a huge country and I have much more to show you, so one day in future, you’ll see more from our Australian adventure. 🙂

See you tomorrow in another sunny place! 🙂

This colorful parrot from today’s picture is called Rainbow Lorikeet.
When I was a child, I was often reading atlas of animals (didn’t like pages with huge photos of spiders 😉 ). I remember well the picture of rainbow lorikeet and my hope to see it in wild one day. So thank you Australia for making my childhood dream comes true. 🙂

In Australia, you’ll easily see plenty of different beautiful parrots. A paradise for birds lovers. 🙂

Australia is famous for a few animals, one of them is koala.
Before our trip, I was hoping to see wild koalas, and we’re lucky. 🙂

The koala from today’s picture was hurt, that’s why it was sitting in the middle of the road. One local knew what to do. He used the stick to check the reaction of the animal. When I saw it, my first thought was “What is he doing!?!”, because I didn’t know that’s the correct way. Later, we helped him and went together to the vet, and my husband was holding poor, stressed koala on the way to the veterinary clinic. Fortunately, this story has a happy end.

In Australia, in Middle Island, there is an amazing Pink Lake (Lake Hillier).
It’s the most famous but not the only salt lake in Australia (other example in today’s picture).

Tasmanian Devil is probably the most famous creature from Tasmania. It’s not so easy to spot them in wild; so it may be a good idea to visit a wildlife sanctuary in Tasmania and there you can see these cute devils and learn why they are endangered (Devil Facial Tumour Disease).

When we’re planning our trip to Australia, I wanted to see Uluru and my husband wanted to go to Tasmania. We visited both places and weren’t disappointed.

Kakadu National Park is home of Aboriginal rock art dating back 20,000 years (one of the examples in today’s picture).
For me, it’s the most interesting part of Kakadu NP. Of course, nature here is nice, but this Aboriginal rock art is much more special.

Another interesting and biggest national park in Australia is Kakadu NP.
You find here rain forests, wetlands, waterfalls, and Aboriginal rock art. 🙂

What’s the official language in Australia?
-The answer is quite interesting, because it’s not English. Australia has no official language. About 80% of the people speak English; other languages are indigenous and minority ones.

I have to say, I was a bit surprised how big area of Australia is covered by rain forests.
So if you like “jungle”, you have to visit Australia. 🙂