The final word on Aruba.

18 miles north of  Venezuela,the island had hit the  jackpot in its position to the Venezuelan oilfields.Two oil refineries were built  in 1929,one of them,Lago Oil, was at the time the largest refinery in the world,employing 8000 islanders.This and the tourism had afforded them  one of the highest standards of living in the West Indies.
In 1985  the refinery, due to the fallen demand worldwide,had closed, but re-opened in 1991.
You do not see anywhere  people begging or lying on the ground drunk.
Aruba has a daily supply of fresh fruit and vegetables from Venezuela, a Caribbean island can  rarely grow own, due to the  soil being washed out of every goodness a vegetable or fruit need to flourish.
Only  20 inches of rain annually, the cacti grow and multiply happily,not much of anything else.
Divi Divi trees [or  Watapana ] are unique to Aruba.Their branches bent  at right angles to the trunk by the trade winds.
Aruba has glorious clear waters,sandy beaches.
But it is flat, it has only three smallish hills, the largest  about 600 feet high,it does not have any greenery to speak of. If it had at least a fraction of the forests Costa Rica has,I would retire there like a shot.But I love the woods, sitting in the shade  under a tree. The smell of burning leaves is intoxicating to me.

That I would miss terribly.