An Aruban Adventure!

Tuesday was our one full day off, with no morning or evening training sessions. Delivering effective and engaging training requires lots of planning that often runs all through the day, and late into the evening. Our tour guides for the day were the beautiful and inspiring Guiding sisters, Eli and Rose. We have come to know them well from many training sessions and despite Rose being unwell, and it being Eli's birthday, the ladies arrived at our apartment bright and early!

First stop was to the famous red anchor, which we proceeded to climb all over for photo purposes. We saw the island's prison, and the oil refinery that is currently closed. The views of the sea were absolutely breathtaking and we even saw some brave kite surfers, sharing the sea with strong currents and sharks!

We then visited Baby Beach and were lucky enough to catch the Grade 6 school children learning to swim in the beautiful sea water. We've been in something of a training bubble for the last two weeks, so we were completely bowled over to see the true beauty of the country. There are no words to describe the beach, however, Zoë has created a fantastic 360 picture that is already on our Facebook page. Next we were off to the Arikok National Park to explore the Quadiriki bat caves and drive through some incredible desert scenery!

We stopped by a natural fish foot spa, and there were plenty of giggles and squeals as the largest fish came to clean away our dead skin! The sun was shining and we proudly gifted two of our Aruba badges to our fabulous hosts. We soon broke into singing and spirits could not have been higher!

We headed out of the National Park to grab some lunch at Glenn's Bar. We tried an Aruban Cheese and Cornmeal delicacy called Funchi and it was lovely to chat more with Rose and Eli. After food, we headed to the newly renovated California Lighthouse, which offers astonishing views of the sea all around. (This is also where Sophie and Zoë took their wedding picture!) Some of the team were sunburned, as even factor 50 couldn't protect us from the glorious sunshine!

We stopped for a final picture in front of one of many portable Aruba signs, and then said farewell to our brilliant Tour Guides. We headed home in lots of traffic, feeling incredibly happy that we'd had such a wonderful day with our Aruban friends.

Whats coming next?
- Guides/Padvindsters and their +1's training tonight

Ridiculous moments...
- Taking our mini van over some very exciting terrain in the Arikok National Park...
- Alexandra singing in the car whilst stuck in the traffic jam
- Sophie, having had a Lush deodorant bar for 2 weeks, is still not sure how to use it! (Readers, any advice on whether it should be wet or not would be greatly appreciated.)