Blue Pony-Aruba

We had no sooner jumped on the free trolley bus in Oranjestad, great tourist service, than the Americans next to us asked where we were from.
 
“Scotland?…we love the place.”
 
Soon the inevitable T word came up.
 
They are puzzled and ashamed  their country have elected such a man as Donald Trump.
 
Little of the original Dutch architecture of this former colony remains. We visited the National Archaeological museum with its free entry due to the fact that the air conditioning had broken down and it must ve been at least 40C in there.
 
The museum was a gem, and we were the only ones in it, not surprising given the temperature.
It’s  there I learn the origin of the blue pony statutes on the streets, a reference to the fears of the early islanders, who on first seeing the Spanish invaders on horses, thought they were some sort of hybrid creatures  with two heads and four legs.
 
Today the centre of Oranjestad is dominated by a huge designer shopping mall, and a string of diamond shops greet cruise  passengers as they step  ashore.
 
At dinner we share a table with four others and discovered why grapefruit is off the menu- too many passengers are on statins (forbidden if you are on the cholesterol lowering drug). Four of the six of us are.
 
Oh yes the men joked about their knee and hip replacement setting off the body scanners at airport security check ins. Such is life.  

NB The joys of living in two time zones- for some inexplicable reason todays entry has skipped back a day-.