Francisco Chirino is the founder of the Museo di Deporte (Sports Museum), dedicated to the achievements of Aruban and international athletes past and present. His goal is to inspire and inform a new generation of athletes. This small museum displays 29 different sports and a collection of almost 2000 pieces of local and international memorabilia, including pins, scrapbooks, photos, trophies, uniforms, and certificates. A wealth of information about U.S. Baseball Hall of Fame stars is also included. Among a proud roster of Arubian athletes are the RCA soccer team that won championships forty times in its seventy years of existence; Evelyn Farrel, the first woman and Aruban to participate in the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984 in the 100-meter event; and Sidney Ponson, now pitching for the Baltimore Orioles. 

Providing visitors with an insight into the Bible and its use on Aruba, the varied collection at the Drs. A. van den Doel Bible Museum in the Protestant Church contains historic bibles in Dutch and other languages. There is an edition of the Septuagint used by early church fathers and a few Hebrew editions. 

Wilhelminastraat 1, Oranjestad / Tel 582-1431 / e-mail: bstigter@setarnet.aw

Back in 1840, the aloe vera wonder plant was introduced in Aruba, influencing everything from art and architecture to health and healing. Soon, two-thirds of Aruba's surface was covered with aloe vera plants and Aruba became the world's largest aloe exporter. The first aloe vera plants were planted on 150 acres of land at the Hato plantation which is still used today to grow the aloe for all Aruba Aloe products.

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Centuries ago, when settlement was permitted by the Dutch, Paarden Baai (Horses Bay) in Oranjestad became an intermediate harbor for trade between Curaçao and Venezuela. For protection against pirates and enemies, Fort Zoutman, Aruba’s oldest building, was built in 1798, and, due to commercial growth, Oranjestad was named Aruba’s capital. The fort, named after Dutch Rear Admiral Johan Arnold Zoutman who never stepped foot on Aruba but defeated the English in the North Sea, did ward off an English attack in 1799.

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Fifty years ago, when the late Mario Odor was gardening in his yard, he came upon his first coin dating back to the late 18th century and thus began a collection that grown to more than 33,000 different coins and currencies dating back as far as 400 BC. Housed in an authentic cunucu house that was moved from the main street, the Numismatic Museum boasts showcases filled with coins primitive and strange, proof, counter-stamped, center-holed, scalloped, square, wooden, and over-struck, as well as errors, commemoratives, tokens and food coupons. 

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The renovated historic Ecury complex in downtown Oranjestad has been transformed from a family home to a modern museum that preserves Aruba’s Amerindian cultural heritage. The oldest part is a cunucu house built in 1870 by the grandparents of Boy Ecury, a young Aruban hero of World War II who lived in the house from 1922 – 1937. The newest section is a large mansion built in 1929.

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Louis XV Antiques & Curiosities can be found inside a complex built with antique building materials from the 17th century. The roof and the onion shaped towers in red copper house 23 showrooms of unusual items from Aruba and South America.

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