Happy outcomes

I just got home after a spontaneous 10-day workation in Aruba with Patricia. We were escaping the road reconstruction that has been tormenting us for the past month and a half. We chose Aruba because it’s warm, it’s in the same time zone, there are direct flights from Toronto, it’s outside the hurricane belt, the internet speeds are decent, and you can drink the tap-water. (Interesting fact, Aruba at one point had the world’s largest desalination plant.)

Aruba is a very small and rather peculiar island just off the coast of Venezuela. It’s interesting for a number of reasons, first being it’s a desert island, literally. It’s hot and windy and barely gets any rain. As a result it has a harsh environment. It’s dry and rocky and covered in cacti. It’s also inhabited by many beautiful species of lizards and a cute burrowing owl called a shoco, which we encountered on a visit to a local rock formation.

Culturally Aruba is quite unique as well. The official language, Papiamento, is a mix of several languages that evolved through early contact between enslaved Africans, European colonizers (especially Sephardic Jews who spoke a mix of Spanish and Portuguese), and the indigenous Arawak people of the neighbouring island of Curaçao. Because of its more recent reliance on tourism, everyone in Aruba speaks multiple languages, the other ones being Dutch, English, and Spanish. It feels multicultural yet there is clearly a local culture.

But the unexpected highlight of the trip for me was making new friends one day when we went to a small beach to do some snorkeling, and ended up sharing a palapa with some strangers.

We arrived at the beach early enough to get a space under one of the public palapas. Not long after we got settled a young couple arrived and asked if we would mind sharing. Of course we said yes, as there was plenty of space and shade is welcome under the hot Aruban sun. We all kept to ourselves at first, but eventually got to chatting. We were initially intrigued by their musical tastes, but also noticed that one of them seemed to be having a conversation with ChatGPT, struggling to get it to recognize the name of the beach we were at. We soon realized we had much more in common.

Hansel and Valentina were a young entrepreneurial couple from Colombia, visiting Aruba to celebrate an anniversary. Like us, they shared a love of music, nature, food, and plant-life. It turned out they were the creators of a new line of cocktail bitters, a first for Colombia, and they were keen to show us, and let us taste, two flavours they had brought with them on their trip. They were proud to share that their bitters were hand-crafted using a mix of local and exotic ingredients from the Amazon jungle. The name they chose for their brand, Nahí, was an indigenous word for “truth”. The labels were beautifully designed, the flavours sublime. We soon bonded over our common love of fine spirits and designing exceptional experiences.

While we were chatting, a friend of theirs arrived and joined our group. Luis was a mixologist, originally from Venezuela, who was working at the island’s coolest cocktail bar and Aruba’s only speakeasy, called Apotek. They had just met recently but seemed like old friends. Luis had very short hair and a very big beard. When he learned we were from Canada he lit up because it turned out that he had originally planned to move there a year ago, but through a combination of circumstances had ended up in Aruba where he landed his current gig. He didn’t really drink but he had a sensitive palate and a mastery of balancing flavours. We all quickly bonded.

Over the next hour or so we talked about music, about the other local beaches and places we had been to, and of course about cocktails and spirits. Eventually the topic of AI came up. I don’t even recall exactly how it came up, but there we were, an eclectic mix of hip foreigners hanging out together under a palapa on a beautiful sunny Sunday at the beach, talking about AI. It was all a bit surreal.

Within the group there were distinctive levels of savviness and comfort, which made for a lively chat. Hansel was an early adopter and was very comfortable with it. He had been using it a lot over the past year to help get their business up and running. Valentina was much more skeptical. She recognized its usefulness and potential impact but was still apprehensive. Luis was fairly novice, admitting that he had only recently begun to check it out. He was curious, but also cautious. The mix of experience made for a lively chat.

We ended up parting ways with our new friends that afternoon, but I made sure to get their contact info. The next day we all got together at Apotek for a final drink as it was Hansel and Valentina's last night in Aruba. It was another opportunity to bond over our common passions, and learn a bit more about each other. It was only then that we realized how far apart we were in age, but it didn’t matter. It was just interesting. That’s the wonderful thing about meeting people while travelling. People who would otherwise never get to know each other find themselves and each other being their authentic selves, happily connecting and expanding their perspectives, outside of their bubbles. 🫧

Cover image and watercolour image made with Midjourney. Shoco owl image made with Recraft.