A lovely guest approached yours truly and asked, does Aruba have a homeless problem? Why are there so many tents on the beach? Well, ladies and gents, no this is not a tropical Skid Row. This is the tradition of Campamento (Camping).
Aruba is predominantly Catholic for about 85% of the population with varying degrees of piety, and as such we do take part in certain celebrations and traditions.

We celebrate the Christmases and Carnavals, and yes Carnaval is also a Christian tradition, to an extent that is. Because our Carnaval it is tied to ash-Wednesday, just as fat-Tuesday or Mardi-Grass is.  We wave good-bye to meat & vices in one big hora celebrating all things meat & vices thus welcoming lent. This leads to a serene period of self-reflection and guilt trip spanning 40 days that culminates with a long weekend holiday from good-Friday to Easter-Monday where camping is the norm, especially on the many public beaches. Obviously, there’s some legal/permit yadayada involved, that I’m not gonna bother you with, but for the most part it is tradition to go camping on Easter weekend.

Fun-fact: The Arubian school kids have a whole weeks’ vacation starting on Easter weekend.

Springtime of youth

In the Olden times the local youths would venture out camping on Easter-weekend, specifically from Saturday to Easter-Sunday. What would inspire them to do so? And why specifically on Saturday? Well, the Aruba of yesterday was very pious and superstitious. We kinda still are but not really, and it was absolutely frowned upon to have any kind of merriment, relaxation or God forbid celebration on good-Friday. 

One would dare not go to the beach or worse yet, be in the water at 3pm on that day lest they wanted to be turned into a fish. For this reason, Saturday was the preferred day to start one’s camping adventure.

In addition to that, the youth-oriented fraternity of scouting might have played a role in spreading camp fever…excuse me I meant to say fervor that seeped into the subculture of the populous developing into what we see today. Or maybe, just maybe…it might just have to do with teens being teens in springtime.

Black Monday

Another theory from the camping tradition stems from the refinery era. A hundred years ago in the year 1924 what started as an oil depot to remedy the nuisance of tankers running adrift in the shallow waters of the lake of Maracaibo inlet, blossomed into the largest oil refinery in the world.

Fun-fact: The lake of Maracaibo is the worlds largest oil reserve bar none, you can fit all of Earths oil reserves into the lake reserve and still have space left over.

The largest heavy crude refinery on Earth at that time was built on Aruba in San Nicolas an area to the southeast of the island, which by the way, we will go much deeper into the refinery and industrial era in a future episode. With the lack of workers, and language barriers between the locals and English-speaking Americans and Europeans at that time being a pressing issue, job vacancies attracted many men from the English-speaking Caribbean islands popularly known as the West Indies. These men predominately black would immigrate to the island to work in the refinery.

Fun-fact: The West Indies is a term associated and used to describe the former British Caribbean colonies. During the adolescence of the LAGO refining era (between 1924 and 1962 to be exact) both the Dutch and British Caribbean were still subject to colonial rule.

Their living quarters would vary depending on the position they held in the refinery. As one old timer would say: “If you a worker you live in the village, if you a foreman you live in the heights, and if you white you live in the colony.” The colony as it was called was the gated community where all the American and European directors and managers of the refinery lived with all the amenities luxuries and to an extent laws and mandates that they enjoyed back home.

And if it weren’t obvious enough, strictly off limits to Rubiano Crioyo (Creole Arubian) and Rubiano Nobo (New Arubian) alike. With access to the most popular beaches in San Nicolas cut off from the rest of the community the West-Indians were left with no choice but to venture pabou (West or Southwestern side of the island).

 Although a large part of the West-Indian community lived in San Nicolas, small pockets of the community could be found in Oranjestad (Madiki, Rancho and Tarabana, Dakota) also, and it was quite normal to gather and celebrate Easter-Monday at the various beaches to the south western side of the island for example Mangel Halto and what today is a called Nikki Beach thus spawning the term Black Monday…for very obvious reasons.

“Un Pascua Maracucho”

The contribution of Black Monday to the tradition of campamento slowly fell into obscurity and got overshadowed by the more recent contribution of our next community to this Crioyo tradition, el Venezolano. Aruba is a stones throw away from South-America the closest point from Aruba to South-America is Punto Fijo, Venezuela about 14-18 miles to the south. There’s always been traffic between Aruba and the mainland dating back to the prehistoric era, but we aren’t going so far back in time ladies and gentlemen.

We are heading to the 1980’s when Venezuela was still one of the richest Latin-American countries, and a lot of the prominent Venezolanos (many of them from the oil industry) would spend their “Semana Santa” or holy week on the islands beaches. Mostly Eagle beach but also in small part Baby and Rodgers beach especially after the closing of LAGO refinery and the opening of the colony.

This era between the 1980s and 1990s is when the tradition kicked into high gear and transitioned into the version of campamento we know today. The rest is history.

Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed today’s tour but before I leave, I would like to extent a heartfelt thank you to: Graciella Nedd, Bibioteca Nacional Arubiana Caribiana, Ramon Todd Dandere, and Rica Delamare for making this episode of Sly N’ Snide Tour Guide possible. Have a good one guys and don’t forget…Once a guest, always a friend.

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