Paw Prints in the Sand

"Here comes Bob" were words that brought smiles to our faces. The statement announced the long-awaited start to our trip from Ottawa to Aruba. The long hours of planning were beginning to pay off.

Our entourage of two guide dogs, two teenagers, one husband and one wife, complete with luggage, would never fit into an ordinary taxicab. The solution had been to ask our friend Bob for help. Since he is a wheelchair user, his accessible van, although lacking seats, had lots of room for all of us.

Once at the airport, a quick check confirmed our pre-booked bulkhead seats with a bit of extra room for Luna and Quincey, our two guide dogs, and we were off to Toronto. The overnight stay in Toronto gave us time to ensure that everyone knew what luggage to take care of and to orient ourselves to Pearson International Airport’s Terminal One before we had to try it in the wee hours of a Sunday morning. After a relaxing meal of room-delivered Chinese food, we all had a good night’s sleep, free from the previous night’s pre-trip jitters.

At 4:00 a.m. the next morning, the talking alarm clock announced, "It’s time to get up -- please hurry!" and played its familiar melody. We fed the dogs with the first two of the meal-sized portion bags of dog food we had measured for the trip before we left home. Next, we enjoyed a quick cup of complimentary coffee before setting off to the airport.

Navigating the now-crowded airport concourse -- at 5:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning -- was a breeze. We travelled our pre-planned route, now filled with people, boxes and baggage. We were soon at the counter of our charter airline, Air Transat, checking in. Our luggage allowance was only 20 kilograms per passenger, about half of a scheduled air carrier’s luggage allowance. There was no extra allowance for the guide dogs’ paraphernalia, and we had two weeks’ supply of dog food in addition to the usual holiday clothing and personal items. We waited with anxiety as the luggage was weighed, hoping that our talking scale at home had been accurate when we weighed the luggage before leaving. We had half a kilo to spare!

The gate agent’s request, in accordance with company policy, that we produce muzzles for the dogs in addition to our passports and tickets, prompted us to present the letter of exemption we had received in advance from Air Transat. We were advised there would be a 90-minute delay in departure time. No worry about time enough for the dogs to digest their food before travelling; however, the scheduled visit to the guide dogs’ "relieving area" found the night before had to be adjusted.

Finally, we were off. The dogs slept at our feet most of the way to Aruba while we had dinner and enjoyed the flight. They did wake up for a few ice cubes and the odd rub from other passengers and crew who asked if they could pat the dogs.

Four and a half hours later, the aircraft doors opened. Ottawa’s heavy summer rain was gone, replaced by the warm, bright Aruba sun. The gentle breeze that blows all the time in Aruba made the 30-degree temperature comfortable. A quick stop at the grass at the edge of the runway, and it was off to Customs and Immigration for the entry formalities.

Whack! Whack! Our passports were stamped. Our baggage had arrived and we were being hustled to the second bus in the line. We were surprised and disappointed: No one had wanted to see our guide dog licences, vaccination certificates, international health certificates and all of the other documentation we had been told would be required. All that work, and no one was interested.

Oh, well -- we were in Aruba! The sun was shining and it was warm. The bus was whisking us past beautiful little white houses with bright red roofs. We even passed a couple of windmills. The trees seemed very small and the ground was brown, not green like most tropical islands, since it seldom rains and when it does, it is usually only for an hour or so. No one even bothers reporting the weather here. What a change from the rain back home in Canada!

The island of Aruba covers only 70 square miles; it is 20 miles long by six miles wide. Aruba has a population of approximately 70,000 people who speak Papiamentu and Dutch, although English and Spanish are also widely spoken. The island is only 15 miles off the coast of Venezuela. Its capital, Oranjestad, was a blur of clean, narrow, twisting streets and bright pink, yellow and blue buildings as we sped toward our hotel.

Soon after checking into the Aruba Holiday Inn, we discovered that we had a problem. In Aruba, unwanted cats are often taken to the hotel district at Palm Beach and released. The cats then manage to survive in a semi-wild state, living on handouts and garbage from the hotels and their guests. As soon as it got dark we discovered that in order to reach our room in the north tower, we had to run the gauntlet of packs of wild cats that were on the prowl and in a fighting mood. They seemed to sense that our dogs were not like the wild Aruban dogs: They were not aggressive and would not fight back. Our dogs were a temptation the Aruban cats could not pass up.

We retreated in a huff to the duty manager’s office. This was the first in a series of occasions that Wilfred Schoop, the hotel duty manager, was to come to our rescue in the next two weeks. We were soon moved to rooms in the hotel’s centre block where the grounds were lit and the buildings surrounded a small park for night excursions. For the hour until we could move, we were escorted to and from our north-tower rooms by hotel security guards. We heard frantic chatter on the walkie-talkies as the guards spotted the marauding cats. Jingle, jingle, clank, clank, clomp, clomp were the sounds from the bushes and brush as the guards shooed the cats away from us, convoying us along the darkened paths. The memory now brings a smile to our faces. We did not encounter the cats again.

While Wilfred Schoop and his staff showed us many small courtesies, some are particularly worthy of mention. Many of the taxis outside the hotel would not take the dogs. The hotel staff did not wish their guests to be treated this way, so they drove us anywhere we wanted to go in the hotel van whenever taxis refused service.

The first night that we ventured out of the hotel for supper, we found ourselves in the lobby of a well-known Aruban restaurant being confronted with the "no dogs allowed" song and dance from the maître d’. By now, Mr. Schoop had come to expect our calls for assistance. "No problem," he told us over the phone.Ę"I know the owner." Ten minutes later, we were tucking into one of the nicest meals we had on the island. Later, we learned that the owner had been told that guide dogs were very valuable -- in fact, worth more than the restaurant and all the pots and pans in it -- so he should be nice to those well-trained dogs.

We had tried to avoid such problems by taking preventative measures before we left Canada. We had asked the Aruba Tourist Board for a letter on their letterhead introducing us and our guide dogs, but our request was refused and the tourist board staff were not able to help effectively once we were in Aruba.

But our hotel’s slogan, "A familiar face in an exotic place," had real meaning. We had come to Aruba for a good time and they were going to see that we had a fabulous vacation.

Joe and Joan were teachers from New Jersey. This was their eleventh trip to Aruba and they knew the island well. We visited the capital with them several times to shop, buying beach wear, shirts, hats with shark bites out of their rims -- the usual tourist souvenirs. One morning, we visited the duty-free port to order liquor that would be delivered to us at the airport on the way home. It was even cheaper than buying it at the airport.

We travelled by local bus on these excursions. The bright yellow buses were clean and fast, although often off schedule. The buses had turnstiles at their front doors. Joe would get the driver to open the back door for us, often giving short awareness sessions. The real skeptics called the dispatcher, but received reassurance thanks to another call from the hotel. In this fashion our guide dogs joined the watermelons and other paraphernalia brought onto the local buses by the Arubans.

We had come to Aruba mainly for beach and sun -- we did not want too much excitement. Our daughter, Chantal, and our son, Daniel, went diving and horseback riding. Chantal had her hair braided by a hotel activity director. Daniel visited the hotel’s casino. He found the five-cent slot machine and it occupied him for hours, when he was not reading his science fiction books.

We parents did even less. Early in the morning we would wander out to the beach and find a shady palm tree. A hotel staff member would bring us chaise longues and we would settle down with our talking books for the day. When we became too warm, it was into the water for a cooling dip in the clear Caribbean sea and chats with fellow bathers from around the world.

Luna Dog would patrol the edge of the sea for hours, back and forth, looking for fish but only catching small pebbles. Onlookers were amazed that this golden retriever would stick her head under water. Quincey, the younger dog at three years old, rarely went into the water. He would dig himself a hole under one of our chaise longues crawl in under the shade of a blanket and watch the people go by. Many people stopped to talk about the dogs, and in this way we made many new friends. We would order lunch from Mathilda’s Beach Bar and it would be delivered to us at our chaise longues. This is also where we got cold water with ice cubes for the dogs.

As the sun started to sink over the water to the west, we would migrate to the pool area to return our towels and wash down the dogs with the hose that the hotel had laid out for our use. Then it was off to the beach bar for our happy hour half-price drinks while watching the sun set.

What an idyllic life -- but, regrettably, it had to come to an end. It was time to travel home all too soon. We had made many new friends and had lots of good memories. We even had a photograph with one of the very capable Dutch veterinarians. Our daughter, the true tourist, had insisted on taking it when we had to visit the animal hospital for unexpected minor medical treatment (due to all the salt water the dogs had lapped up).

When we walked up the aircraft ladder with our guide dogs, the whites of our toothy grins shone against our tans as we overheard a startled crew member remark, "They are big! They are not chihuahuas!" (Luna weighs 63 pounds and Quincey 82 pounds.)

But maybe our smiles were ones of anticipation, since it would soon be time to plan our next adventure!

(Marie and Chris Stark live with their two children in Ottawa, Ontario.)