Have you ever visited a new destination and found yourself coincidentally connected to it in a way you never expected? You know, you visit somewhere you’ve never been before and meet someone you’ve never met who just happens to be from the same small town you’re from. Or, you attend an event and learn that the speaker, who is a native of the town you’re visiting, just so happens to now live in a town very close to where you live. I’ve had the experience of coincidental travel connections pretty often but never as much as on one late afternoon at Charlie’s Bar and Restaurant in Aruba.
I always do at least cursory research on a destination before a trip and travel with a list of places to visit ranked by must-see, want-to-see, check-it-out if there’s extra time, etc. How far I get down the list depends upon whom I’m traveling with or if I’m alone. Gunnar Andersen was accompanying me on this trip and he only likes to visit one or two places, max, in a day and at a slow, leisurely pace. So, I had to keep each day’s itinerary very short but with backups in mind, just in case I had an opportunity to slip something extra in.
On this day, while we were exploring the south end of the island, I noticed a huge red anchor. Somehow it hadn’t appeared in my pre-trip research so it was unfamiliar to me. I wanted to see it and try to learn what it was all about. Gunnar stopped the Hyundai Accent he’d rented for our adventures so we could take a closer look at it.
Aruba’s Red Anchor is a memorial to seamen in memory of Charles Brouns, Jr.
The anchor was very large, about 10 ½ feet wide and 15 feet ½ feet tall, and painted bright red. It was set onto a concrete cube within a larger roundish, flat, concrete slab poured onto the grass and bordered with stones of various sizes. The plaque read, “To All Seaman in Memory of Charles Brouns, Jr. 1941-2004″. On the left anchor arm was a diamond shape and below it, an “h” in a circle and below that, the numbers “4112”. On the right anchor arm directly across from the white diamond shape was a white circle. Below it and on a horizontal plane with the “h” were the letters “DBP” in a white outlined circle. Below that and level with the “4112” was “21772K”.
We didn’t understand the significance of the numbers, letters, and shapes on it but it was a touching memorial to seamen. It stood out from the scraggy scrub grass that surrounded the concrete slab and the calm, pristine blue waters behind it. I wondered how I’d missed it in my research and decided to delve into it later.
Airikok National Park occupies almost 20% of the island and has a terrain ranging from rugged rocks and desert to hills and coastline.
We got back in the car and explored the Arikok National Park then searched for the fallen Natural Bridge, which had collapsed since my first visit to Aruba, years earlier. We bounced up and down rough trails better suited for four-wheel-drive vehicles than our little Hyundai but it took us everywhere we wanted to go that afternoon. There were breaks in the dusty roads where we could travel along the coastline. We stopped more than a few times for me to “take just one more photo”. It had been way too long since I had been to Aruba and I felt compelled to capture every moment in case more years passed before I was able to return.
The Natural Bridge arch collapsed on September 2, 2005. The bridge, made of coral limestone, had a natural arch about 25′ high and 100′ long. The arch was formed in the bridge as the surf pounded it and eroded the arch shape into the limestone. The bridge remains are all that is left of an ancient cave that crumbled long ago.
It was also Thursday and we flew back home on Friday. This was our last day on the island and I knew that it was my last chance on this trip to see or shoot any items left on my Aruba bucket list. There was one place I really wanted to visit and from what I could tell, we were on the right side of the island to get there.
So when Gunnar announced that he was done and ready to head back to the resort, I spoke up. “There’s one more thing we need to do”, I said. “It’s on the way back to the condo.” Gunnar crankily asked me what it was but I wouldn’t tell him because I knew he would say we could see/do it next time. I’m of the “do it once, do it right, do it now” philosophy, so I told him that it would only take a minute and that I would give him the directions as we went, silently praying that the GPS on my phone would take us straight there rather than getting us lost as it had been known to do.
So far, our experience with driving out in the more desolate areas of Aruba was that the road signs were posted in locations that made interpreting them ambiguous. I can’t tell you how many times we paused and asked each other, “Do you think it’s telling us to go left or straight?” when seeing a sign posted in the middle between a road going left or one going straight. Or, at a different but likewise confusing road, “It kind of looks like it’s telling us to go straight but since there is no road straight ahead, do you think it’s more left or more right?” Driving was a huge part of the adventure of exploring Aruba and even with a map, you weren’t guaranteed to head straight to your destination with the rugged road conditions and vague road signs.
This little Hyundai Accent drove us to adventures all over the island of Aruba.
We wandered up and down the curvy roads trying to find a road sign that we could trust to navigate us to the secret location. Gunnar becoming increasingly more demanding to know where we were going but acquiesced when I told him that I just wanted to buy him a beer. I assured him that we had to go to this place but if he didn’t like it, we would only stay for a few minutes, just long enough for him to drink his beer. Now Gunnar is a thirsty gent, especially as the afternoon rolls on. He took the bait and started trying to help me with the directions.
Finally, we passed the abandoned Valero oil refinery and entered the quiet village of San Nicolas. Puzzled, I thought to myself, “This doesn’t look like what I was expecting. I hope I can persuade Gunnar to get out of the car if we ever find the place.” What was I expecting? Well, based on Charlie’s being described as a famous bar and restaurant, I expected a busy establishment in a lively area of Aruba. This was a sleepy little community and it appeared that everyone had turned in for the night.
Thankfully, soon after that, we started seeing street signs that matched the directions squawking from my phone. We got more and more excited as we made turns that followed the directions but yet we still didn’t find the well-known bar and restaurant.
Suddenly, the GPS announced that we had arrived. We pulled into a parking spot and cautiously decided to walk around the block and try to find it. A rather scruffy-looking older gentleman approached our rental and offered to guard it for us. The idea that we had arrived at a place where our little rental needed to be guarded was pretty alarming. “What about us, were we safe here?”, I wondered to myself. Honestly, the man didn’t look as if he could protect himself, much less the Hyundai, which had become like a trusted old friend in getting us through all the twisty rocky roads that it was never designed to tread.
“Great!”, I thought as we got out of the car and turned it over to the self-appointed security guard. “What have I gotten us into? Gunnar will never forgive me if this doesn’t go well because he didn’t want to come here in the first place.”
I forced a brave smile and started walking as if I knew exactly where we were going. We walked the block to the next street over, turned the corner, and there it was!
Charlie’s has been an icon and a San Nicholas must-do since 1941.
We had found it. Even though I had only read about it briefly without the benefit of a photo, there was something vaguely familiar about it. Something about its corner location, its open wooden doors and shutters for windows, both decorated with random license plates, brightly painted murals and signage that resembled somewhere I knew well. Then, I realized it reminded me of bars in New Orleans and across the river in Algiers, in Louisiana, my home state.
So here we were at Charlie’s Bar and Restaurant. Well, we had come this far and I had to go in. Now, if I could just get Gunnar to follow suit.
We entered the dark building a little cautiously and sat down at a table. “What do you want?”, a bronzed, dark-haired man asked us. “We just want to order a beer”, we smiled and answered a little nervously. “Oh, well, if you’re not eating, you can’t sit here”, the man replied. “Okay, well, where can we sit?”, Gunnar asked. “You have to sit at the bar if you want to drink”, the man replied matter-of-factly and walked away.
We gathered our belongings and headed not more than five feet away from the small empty “dining area” to the official “bar” area. Our eyes were adjusting to the dimness of the naturally lit bar’s interior by now and we found stools on which to rest our road-weary selves.
Charlie’s is full of knickknacks and memorabilia dating from its opening in 1941 through the more than 75 years it’s been in business.
That’s when I started noticing all the stuff. Literally, every square inch of wall space had something hung on it. And the ceiling was crammed with stuff hanging from it. Every shelf was crammed with knickknacks. My eyes went from object to object trying to make sense of it all, from the collection of beer steins back of the bar, to the license plates, signs, sports pennants, and works of art. I began to realize that randomness was the order and design.
Then, out of the erratic wall and ceiling collage of art objects, my gaze fell upon one particular item – a purple pennant with gold letters that protruded prominently out of the jungle of momentos. Not too far away from it a twisted strand of green, gold and purple beads dangled from the ceiling. “LSU? What?”, I thought. “An LSU flag and Mardi Gras beads, here in Aruba?!” LSU, or Louisiana State University, for anyone not in the know, is a large university in my home state. Their football team is one the highest-ranked in the SEC and the U.S. Now, I was really starting to feel at home.
For those who don’t know, Mardi Gras is a celebration on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent. The words “Mardi Gras” are French for “Fat Tuesday”, which is a huge holiday in New Orleans, as well as other parts of Louisiana and some other countries. In Louisiana, it is celebrated with parades where people, often dress in costumes, ride on raised decorated floats and throw beads, like the ones hanging from Charlie’s ceiling, down to the parade-goers who try to catch them or scramble to pick them up off the street or ground where they land. Everyone enjoys rich foods and a special round/oval cake, called King Cake, that tastes kind of like a cinnamon roll stuffed with a sweetened cream cheese filling with a confectioner’s sugar glaze on top and has a tiny figurine of baby Jesus inside. The tradition is that whoever finds the baby in their piece of cake hosts the party the following year. The unofficial goal of Mardi Gras is to fill up on special food and have a big blow-out before fasting and giving up certain indulgences for the 40 days of Lent.
An LSU flag and Mardi Gras beads stand out from the plethora of other memorabilia.
Anyway, by this time, I looked back and saw that our beers had arrived – Corona with lime for me and Balashi, which is brewed and bottled on the island, for Gunnar. I had tried and enjoyed the other island brew, Chill, but at 7.4 ounces, it more of a beer sample than a full-on drink. Besides, it was supposedly crafted to taste like Corona anyway and after all the getting lost exploring and hiking we had done, I deserved a full-sized 12-ounce Mexican beer, preferably dressed with salt and lime, just like we were used to back home.
Vintage Boozers and Bonaire license plates hang from a dowel in Charlie’s Bar.
I went back to our barstools to check in with Gunnar and see if he was willing to stay and drink the beer I’d promised and bought him. Gunnar never meets a stranger and he was chatting it up with a small group of people who had just come in and were sitting next to him and the seat he’d saved for me. He introduced me to them and asked me to guess where they were from. “I dunno, where?”, I gave up without guessing and he answered, “San Antonio”. “San Antonio? No way!”, I answered. How could it be that out of 8 patrons sitting at the bar, three-quarters of them were from Texas – us and the people Gunnar had met. And not just Texas but San Antonio, Texas, a city I had grown to know and love when we worked on a 9-month project there. It’s only 2 ½ hours from where we now live and still one of my favorite Texas destinations. It was also where Gunnar had lived as a child, graduated from high school, and where several of his family members still live.
After that, we relaxed and Gunnar settled in to enjoy his beer. We spent the next hour or so visiting with the San Antonians as if they were old friends we hadn’t seen in a while. There were several more similarities to our stories, including our shared love of Aruba. And, the couple was looking to buy a vacation home in Port Aransas, not far from The Island, as Padre Islanders call it. We got to know each other and the bartender, Raul, who turned out to be a charming man with a devilish sense of humor and twinkly eyes that belied his bristly manner.
A bust of Charles Brouns, Sr., the original owner who opened Charlie’s back in 1941.
As we sat there, my eyes kept going back to the myriad of displays in the bar. I noticed a bronze portrait and got up to take a closer look at it. It was engraved “Charlie Brouns Sr., Founder of Charlie’s Bar”. “Brouns, Charlie Brouns, Charles Brouns”, I thought. Something was nagging me about that name. It was an unfamiliar spelling of the name pronounced like we Americans say “Browns” and I felt I’d heard the name recently. I sat down again and mused over it and it came to me – the red anchor. I scanned through the photos I had taken at the site and confirmed that “Charles Brouns, Jr.” was the name on the red anchor we had seen. That had to mean that Charlie who had founded Charlie’s Bar, Charles Sr., was the father of the man the red anchor was dedicated to, Charles Jr.
The Red Anchor of Aruba was dedicated in memory of Charles Brouns, Jr.,the son of the original “Charlie”, Charles Brouns, Sr., and the father of the current owner of Charlie’s, Charles Brouns, III.
I asked Raul about it. He said my logic was correct and showed me a portrait of Charles, Jr. on the wall. Now, my interest in the story behind the red anchor was really piqued and I knew that I would research the story at some point after our trip.
Soon, Raul was joined behind the bar by another man and we started visiting with him. I noticed his resemblance to Charlie, Sr. and asked if he was related to him. Turned out that he was the current proprietor of Charlie’s, Charles Brouns, III. When he heard that we were all from Texas and that our new friends were from San Antonio, he shared that he had attended UTSA (University of Texas, San Antonio). This was news to all of us, even the San Antonians who said they visit Aruba and Charlie’s every year. All of these coincidences were getting overwhelming but as we visited, we learned even more.
As it turns out, while Charlie attended UTSA, he drove down to see the south Texas coast in his Honda Civic and specifically to Padre Island. He drove his Civic about 30 miles down the 60-mile long Padre Island National Seashore. Having driven to the end of the island myself in a Jeep, I could imagine how a high tide, high winds, and loose sand could have made that drive quite challenging in a Honda Civic. Probably just as challenging as driving the hilly, rocky, rugged, bumpy, poorly marked roads of Aruba in a Hyundai was for us.
About this time, we actually were getting hungry. Charlie disappeared for a few minutes and when he returned, he teased our palates with a handful of fine, fresh, Texas-sized shrimp laid out across his palm. Unfortunately, Raul, with a wink and a wicked twinkle in his eye, said that the kitchen was now closed so we would have to come back another time to try the seafood that Charlie’s is so famous for.
Raul shares the kitchen hours as posted on the menu and Charlie shows us the fine, fresh jumbo shrimp the restaurant serves.
That didn’t happen since we had to catch a flight off the island early the next day. However, trying Charlie’s shrimp is more than reason enough for me to return to Aruba. I can’t wait to go back, enjoy some of those huge shrimp and share the photos and story here.
Oh, and by the way, when we left I asked Gunnar if he’d enjoyed Charlie’s after all. He gave it a solid two thumbs up and agreed that we needed to make another trip to Aruba and definitely had to go back to Charlie’s in plenty of time to eat before the kitchen closed.
Until then, if you get there before me, I know you’ll enjoy your visit and find your own coincidental connections to Charlie’s and the “One happy island” of Aruba.
Charlie’s Bar and Restaurant (Note: Charlie’s Website redirects to their Facebook page), Bernard van de Veen Zeppenfeldstraat 56 (Main Street), San Nicholas, Aruba, Telephone: +297-584-5086. Kitchen and Bar Hours: Monday – Saturday 11:30 am to 7:00 pm. Don’t be late!
To call Aruba from the US:
Dial 011 – the US exit code (to call from a different country, use that country’s exit code)
297 – the Aruba country code
584-5086 – Charlie’s phone number
Hear Charlie tell the story behind the red anchor.
TRY THIS IF YOU MISS DINNER AT CHARLIE’S
If you miss dinner at Charlie’s like we did, try the Flying Fishbone. It’s only 11.6 km or roughly 7.2 miles from San Nicholas on the way back to Oranjestad and stays open till 10:00 p.m. The food is excellent and the dining experience is an adventure in itself. Call first, though, to make sure there’s an open table.
Flying Fishbone, Savaneta 344, Aruba; Reservations Tel.: +297 584 2506; Email: mainofficefb@gmail.com; Daily Hours: 5:00 pm to 10:00 pm AST. Directions Menu Wine List
Read about the Breeze Traveler’s experiences at the Flying Fishbone.
Explore Airikok National Park.
WANT TO SEE MORE OF ARUBA?
Visit our Aruba Gallery below. Click on a picture to start the slideshow. Then, click on the “I” in the lower left-hand corner to display the captions. This gallery is under construction. Please check back for more photos over time.
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