- It’s unique; you know of any other aloe museums?
- Educational and kid-friendly
- Very friendly tour guides
- Genuine island shopping experience
- If you bore easily, this might be a little snoozy for you
- Seeing aloe products being manufactured isn't very visually exciting
- Fee for tour seems excessive for what you get
- Address: Pitastraaat 115, Oranjestad, Aruba
- Phone: 297-588-3222
- Admission: Adults, $8, children, $4
- Hours: Mon-Fri., 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sat., 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Lofty goal, that, but not unreachable. The ubiquitous logo of Aruba Aloe is easy to spot, and this is truly a remarkable product: aloe has well-known medicinal and cosmetic applications, from burn ointment to shampoo to providing the base for sunscreen and being a key ingredient in deodorant and skin cream.
And aloe works: On our tour, I told our guide I had a bit of a sunburn on the back of my neck. She squirted some burn balm into my hand, I rubbed it in, and the pain was gone. The next day, my neck had tanned up and hadn't peeled.
The tour really is something to see if you’re into the history of how things are made. Aloe once was the main economic engine of this tiny island, and at one time Aruba was the world’s largest provider of the cooling gel. Aloe is still grown on 120 of the same acres it has been cultivated since 1890. The sparkling new museum and factory was built five years ago on the same grounds as the original aloe factory.
A bit of scatalogical humor on the tour: Our guide repeatedly warned of the intestinal effects of raw aloe. If you break off a piece of an aloe stem, beware the orange oily residue that first drips out: it is a powerful natural laxative (and marketed as such many years ago), even if you just get it on your skin. And it leaves a nasty stain, too, so watch where it drips.
You need to peel the thick skin off and let the gel soak in water a while to really make sure all the 'poop potential' is gone. “If you do not,” our guide warned, “you be in the bathroom a long, long time.” Not exactly an endearing sales pitch, but downright educational, and that’s not a bad thing.
