Santa Elena Info, Curacao

The beaches curve like an Aruban smile along the western shores, soft and white and fringed with palm trees, sloping gently toward the calm, transparent turquoise of the Caribbean. The waves of the Atlantic crash like incessant thunder against the northern cliffs, carving high, arched coral bridges and deep, dark, secret limestone grottoes. Between the two extremes, in a desert landscape where the cacti grow to the height of a man, great building-sized tumbles of boulders stand like the legacy of some ancient, angry god. Winding roads lead to rocky passes and hidden coves, or sometimes to nowhere at all. Green parakeets call to their mates, and troupials flash billiant orange against the deep blue of the Caribbean sky. This is not the Caribbean as usual. This is Aruba! And, if it's true that opposites attract, then this could well be the most attractive island of them all.