Spanish Lagoon Mangrove Trail & Bird Watching

Since I live on Aruba as a pensionado (2017) the wetland Spanish Lagoon has become one of my favorite nature spots to visit. It's incredible how many different animals live in the small area, especially birdwatchers will be delighted. I highly recommend to visit the Spanish Lagoon before sunrise and then experience how nature awakes, often with a wonderfully colored sky. Keep in mind that it can be very hot when you walk in the sun, use special lotion.

The hike was very calm and didn’t require much effort besides a few small areas. Our tour guide Jason was very kind and knowledgeable on the native history and names for everything we saw. Overall, the experience was great and I would recommend it if you are on the fence with it.

We went on a nature hike and finally got to see Shoco Owls! I wasn't expecting to see so much wildlife or learn so much about plants and the Island history.

Early morning pick up with Meck?? (Spelling). Very charming and entertaining professional and knowledgeable guide. Amazing sights and sounds of the area and tons of early morning birds including and owl. Meck made the tour for us most enjoyable. A great early morning learning experience.

Hiking tour and appropriate comfortable clothing and bug spray important. Binoculars if available could also be helpful.

We had a wonderful hike through the Mangrove forest and the mine ruins. Jorge was a wonderful guide! We hiked with kids ages 8 & 6. The 6 year old was a bit tired, and required an occasional piggy back ride. Our 8 year old walked the entire way. Closed toed shoes are a must! I highly recommend bug spray which we forgot! This was an incredible morning seeing the wonderful nature of aruba including cactus fruit!

Aruba Nature Adventure Tours was an incompetent disgrace that made the Spanish Lagoon and Mangrove Trail Half-Day Hike with Private Guide as unpleasant as it could possibly be. We paid $200, albeit through Viator as middle company, for this hike. On our way to the rendezvous point for the hike, we called the point person at Aruba Nature Adventures. He told us that nobody was there to meet the us, the hike customers, at the appointed 7:15 a.m. time and hung up on us. How do you not know the day, time, and location that your paying customers are scheduled for the hike and make preparations for this?! After Aruba Nature Adventures hung up on us and we turned our cab around to go back to our hotel, then their man called us back and wanted to reschedule for another day. After some back and forth about that, he later said he had someone to guide us on the hike, after all. We then had to turn the cab around YET AGAIN, to meet at the rendezvous point! Thankfully, Rambo, our guide, who later said he was called in on spur of the moment on his day off, was the MAJOR high point of the hike. He was AMAZING and only his wonderful guidance through this made the hike worth it! He knew every animal, tree, bush, shrub, rock, river, lake, fish, and path in the park, as well as the history, back story, and entire life story of them all, too! He went beyond the call of duty in not just his knowledge, help and making the hike as easy as possible for us (this was an intermediate level hike); but he also went out of his way to drive us to the main Oranjestad Bus Station after our hike. So, although our marvelous guide, Rambo, would get more than 5 stars, if possible, this company Aruba Nature Adventure Tours would get ZERO stars! All the initial rudeness and back and forth was too much problematic inconvenience for us as customers. I would not recommend Aruba Nature Adventures to my worst enemy. The company is bad. Avoid it like the plague.

Rambo, our tour guide, was the major high point of the tour. He went beyond the call of duty in not just his knowledge, help and making the hike as easy as possible for us, and this was an intermediate level hike. He also went out of his way to drive us to the main Oranjestad Bus Station after our hike. Aruba Nature Adventure Tours was an incompetent disgrace that made this hike as unpleasant as it could possibly be. Only Rambo’s wonderful guidance through this saved Aruba Nature Adventures in our hike. We paid $200, albeit through Viator as middle company, for this hike. On our way to the rendezvous point for the hike, we called the point person at Aruba Nature Adventures. He told us that nobody was there to meet the tour customers at the appointed 7:15a.m. time and hung up on us. How do you not know the day, time and location that your paying customers are scheduled for the hike and make preparations for this? After Aruba Nature Adventures hung up on us and we turned our cab around, then their man called us back and scheuled Rambo, on his day off, to guide us on the hike. This was too much problematic inconvenience for us as customers. I would not recommend Aruba Nature Adventures to my worst enemy. The company is bad. Avoid it like the plague.

Through our hotel, we booked a private tour with Jorge that included the Spanish Lagoon/mangrove but also the Bushiribana gold mill ruins, and the natural bridge. Jorge's passion for ecology and conservation was clear and gave us context for our stay in Aruba. The resort area is nice but manicured and not what the "real" Aruba is naturally. Jorge was very knowledgeable about native plants, birds, and history. I highly recommend his company and his tour!

The tour company reached out to us that they had to cancel our Friday tour, but offered a refund or a tour on Saturday. So, we chose Saturday. I'm so glad we did! We met down by TeleAruba and it was my husband and I with guide Jorge and Phillip came along (as training?) Both were charming, and knowledgeable. You meet at 7:30am and when I woke up, it was hard to get myself moving, I was wondering if I'd regret signing up for a lagoon tour so early, but it was worth it! It was a beautiful little hike in an unfamiliar part of Aruba. We saw lots of birds, and animals including the burrowing owl. The guides shared nature, geologic, and historical information throughout the walk. It requires the mildest amount of scampering over some downed trees, and ducking under canopy, but overall if you're in even fairly decent you will be fine! This was a very nice morning, and I'm so glad we went!