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ARUBA - CARIBBEAN PARADISEBY PHILIP Z. TRUPP |
Yes, Aruba we can argue with your success. Or at least wonder about it.
Not that it isn't brilliant, an economic plan so focused it rejuvenated your decimated economy. You did the
right thing by taking care of human needs first - creating jobs, cash flow, housing. Can't argue with that.
Trouble is, you may be moving too fast, too aggressively, and it is blocking my vision, the one that has stayed
with me since I first landed on the island in the BEFORETIME, back in the early 1980s.
I recall standing on a hillside near Andicuri overlooking the sea On the beach a natural stone bridge, carved
by the wind that never lets up along this northern coast, formed a primitive arc between sea and sky. It was a
magnificent vision, one in which the spirit came in contact with immutable forces.
I remember, too, the boulders at Ayo and Casibari and the summit of Hooiberg's six hundred steps from
which we could see the coastline of Venezuela 19 miles away.
"You won't recognize the place," warned Christine Hinz, whose New York public relations firm, Lou
Hammond Associates, represents the island in the US. "Things have changed - a lot" She said it gently, in a
voice she uses to deliver news that is not entirely pleasant
And driving from Queen Beatrix International Airport through the capitol of Oranjestad late last year,
Christine's words hit home: Lights. Whizzing Hondas. Pizza Hut Shopping malls. Cruise ship terminals. Limbo
dancers.
I discovered that Christine, who is awfully witty, is also a mistress of understatement I had to struggle to
revive the old images, to recall the stark and desolate beauty that seemed for the moment to belong to
another place and time.
These images were still with me at a generous breakfast with Aruba's Minister of Economic Affairs and
Tourism, Edison Briesen He was wonderfully relaxed, given that he had a crestfallen journalist facing him.
But then Briesen had no bad news, and it was easy for him to be as casual as the tailored khaki business suit
he was wearing.
"We had to create jobs," he was saying. "Money. So." He paused to measure his words. "Tourism was the
way to go.
And was it ever. The remarkable success of Aruba comes as other Caribbean destinations have taken a
recessionary hit Clearly, Briesen was the realist, and I am, as always, in search of the romance. Briesen's
duty, as an elected politician, was (and is) to completely restore the island's once-decimated economy.
There were a lot of bets that he'd never pull it off.
Briesen eases into his chair, pours a finger of fruit juice, eyes its sunny color.
"You see what it says on our license plates? 'One Happy Island."' He smiles and sips the imported juice. He
has earned that easy smile.
He has ushered the island into the age of big jets, disposable herd currency. Here, on this 77-square-mile
desert in the sea once a backwater to oil-rich Venezuela he has created enviable (it is amazing) prosperity.
When I arrived in the early 1980s, Aruba's life blood was centered on oil refining at Lago Oil & Transport,
Ltd., a subsidiary of Standard Oil The refinery had been operating since 1929, and when it shut down in 1983
it seemed as if the earth opened up and swallowed everything. Aruba was the Caribbean equivalent of a
single-industry town, where most of the citizens worked for - and owe their survival to-the company store.
"One can't be so entirely dependent on outside investment," Briesen said. "We Aruba's other large town,
San Nicho needed to enlist our internal resources," alas, is less developed, but nevertheless euphemism for
tourism.
When I first visited the island, there were about 300 hotel rooms. Today there are more than 5,000. Clearly
those "internal resources" have paid off beyond anyone's expectations.
Briesen speaks of "full employment." In : fact, labor is being imported from Europe and South America New
homes are sprouting up as fast as aloe, and population has been steadily on the rise; it now numbers more
than 78,000.
Impressive statistics, and Briesen knows it. He gives you the numbers almost offhandedly, the way you might
mention the weather:
Twenty-seven luxury hotels, more than 100 international restaurants, nine casinos, Las Vegas-styled shows,
a brand new airline, Air Aruba, and an Aruban florin with a very favorable rate of exchange.
"Our GDP is like a middle-sized city in the US," Briesen suggested. "About $1 billion."
There are many ways to attract capital, he added. "Our political autonomy has been quite helpful"
In 1986, Aruba became a "separate entity" within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Intrutil, the Dutch, as
energetic colonizers, have never really pulled out, a circumstance appreciated by sawy Arubans who know
the power of hard currency and First World "perks."
These advantages are obvious everywhere along the southern coast Downtown Oranjestad is the island
equivalent of Coconut Grove, only safer, cleaner, with less exploitative pricing. Business is booming.
Aruba's other large town, San Nicholas, is less developed, but nevertheless commercial. Happily, more of the
real island comes through in the old tin-plated warehouses, in the ancient shops and bars, in the faces that
pass you on the street You do not sense the bad vibes that have, unfortunately, overtaken so many
Caribbean destinations.
In Charlie's Bar on Main Street, you feel you've arrived at long-lost Port Royal There is something slightly
wicked, slightly alluring, and you can tell it's true island soul-a kind of Caribbean Casablanca, exotic but
accessible.
After a few days, I began to see past the almost cosmic "economic expansion." I was delighted-and
surprised-to find indigenous arts and crafts, items in short supply elsewhere in the Caribbean. And there was
the love of art and culture.
Meanwhile, they wit truck on with the spirit of Aruba's official slogan: "The Aruban will continue to do his
utmost to please the tourist " And last year, 541,000 tourists passed through, an eight per cent increase over
the previous year.
Briesen isn't hard sell when it comes to all this; he's sensitive to criticism that Aruba may be going too fast. It
is a bit unsettling to see all those cinder block dwellings creeping up, however slowly, on the natural beauty of
the island, threatening California Lighthouse, the primitive cave drawings, and the stark natural bridge arcing
above a restless, white-capped sea That's the romance, the element of vulnerability that worries me.
But Arubans aren't greedy, Briesen insisted. The economy has been so thoroughly revamped, so neatly
focused, that perhaps it's time to take a breather, enjoy the fruits, he said.
"We have a moratorium on building. The unhealthy over development of other islands won't happen here,"
he announced. "One more hotel A golf course. And that's it, at least for now."
My own view, having seen it then and now, is that Aruba has grown up. Yes, it's a bit too grown up at times,
but it's maturity provides good value. Accommodations, for most part, are first-rate; prices are mostly
reasonable. I paid a few dollars for two lovely Dutch glazed ceramics, poured over batik and European wines,
enjoyed a French meal at Matthilde's.
Yet for all its success, Aruba remains for me an island of raw natural wonder, of arid hits and unbroken sea
and a sky swept clean by the wind. What remains for Briesen and other Arubans is to know when enough is
enough, when more becomes less.