How I Ended up Living in Aruba for Two Months

Woo-hoo! In September and October, 2021, I will be living on the beautiful white-powdery-sand island of Aruba.

I wasn’t planning to visit Aruba this year. The opportunity just fell in my lap recently. So off I go…

In case you’re wondering how I suddenly landed in Aruba or why I’ll be there or even where the heck Aruba is, read on…

Quick intro to Aruba

Aruba is a small flat sand island in the Caribbean. It’s situated in the southern region of the Caribbean Sea, just north of South America, closest to Venezuela.

Photos of Aruba show the perfect tropical island paradise: perfectly white powdery sand beaches, coconout palms and perfectly calm, crystal-clear turquoise sea water that’s ideal for swimming and snorkeling.

Aruba is popular with American vacationers who go stay in big beachside luxury hotels, take snorkeling and diving trips, get their beach fix and de-stress.

How I Ended up Living on Aruba for Two Months…

Short & sweet version:

A long-lost friend of mine knew a Dutch woman who needed a cat sitter in Aruba. My friend suggested me to her. The home owner and I spoke. And the rest is history.

Full details version:

In mid-2021 I was in Turkey, more or less waiting out the Covid pandemic, and researching for nearby countries that had borders open so I could slowly continue my world travels.

I decided to explore more of wonderful Turkey during June & July, then cross the border into the country of Georgia. I planned to stay in Georgia about one month but couldn’t quite figure out where to go from there, considering border closures, entry requirements, Covid restrictions and so on. International travel had unfortunately become rather complicated and considerably more expensive during the Covid era.

I also planned to return to Florida later in the year to enjoy the holidays with family. I had originally planned to return in 2020, but the Covid pandemic put me on hold for that visit. So in late 2021 I had about two months of travel time to figure out before heading Stateside.

In mid-July, just about two weeks before I was due to reach Georgia, I got a random message out of the clear blue from an American friend that I hadn’t heard from in years, maybe a decade.

I had met Brian in San Franciso back in 2002, when I was visiting a good university friend in SF for about 10 days, while en route back to Thailand.

Brian was the most amazing, outrageously-dressed guy I saw at an underground trance party set in a huge warehouse in the middle of the city. An Asian-American, Brian had long silky-black hair past his shoulders, an enormous bright top hat, skin-tight blue velvet pants and a vibrantly-patterned shirt. It didn’t take me long to begin dancing with him. We hit it off, hung out together at the party, and met up a few days later to hang out some more.

Soon I left San Francisco, but we kept in loose contact. Several years later Brian married a lovely Indian-American woman. In about 2007 or 2008, they came to visit me in Thailand while I was teaching scuba diving. I took them out diving. We enjoyed a few meals together and caught up on our lives.

That’s the last time I saw Brian and Tameeza, though we’ve kept in touch loosely over the years. I knew they had kids and still enjoyed fun parties. But it was 10 years or more since I last spoke with either of them.

Fast forward to July, 2021…I was understandably surprised to hear from Brian out of the clear blue. I was even more surprised to hear his story and proposal…

Turns out Brian and family were currently hanging out in Aruba for a couple months. They had recently re-located to Los Angeles, but since their kids were on summer vacation and Brian & Tameeza could work remotely, they’d decided to escape the Covid pandemic to somewhere else in the world….which finally landed them in Aruba.

Since they were on the island, they knew of a Dutch woman who normally lived on Aruba, but who needed someone to take care of her cat and apartment for 2-3 months while she was in Holland. Brian said that when he heard about her plight, he’d immediately thought of me. Great!

When I replied that I might be able to do it, Brian connected me with the house owner. As soon as I met her via video chat, I knew we’d hit it off. And we did. I introduced her to my travel blog so that she could see who I am. She loved it. And that was that.

Her cat-sitting position was actually open from early August. A previously-installed cat-sitter had a sudden family emergency and sadly had to leave Aruba unexpectedly.

However, I couldn’t make it all the way over to Aruba by early August from the Black Sea coast of Turkey. I would have had to leave immediately.

If I was going to head to Aruba, then I wanted to return to Florida first. I could finally visit family, whom I hadn’t see for nearly three years. I needed a Covid vacine. I ought to drop off heaps of winter clothes, accumulated travel books & souvenirs and other thinigs I didn’t need to haul to Aruba. And flights from Florida to the Caribbean were cheap.

I’d need a least one week in Florida to get my body onto a new time zone, visit with family and manage all my tasks and preparations for Aruba.

So I arranged with the home owner to arrive in Aruba at the end of August and stay until she returned to the island in late October, which would mean I’d be cat sitting for seven full weeks.

From my position at Turkey’s Black Sea coast in late July, that also meant I could go explore Georgia for one month before flying back to Florida in late August. So that became my new travel plan for the end of 2021.

So stay tuned…I’ll be sharing plenty of photos, travel tips and information about beautiful Aruba, starting next week and continuing over the next two months!

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