SOMETHING FROM THE MAILBOX....

**This is an actual emailed letter that was sent to me by a Aruban Boycott member that came from a friend. Definitely not a flattering letter...the ATA would hate to read this one!

Hi Bob (name changed):

For many years our family has been going to Aruba, no more. We purchased a time share in the Playa Linda resort but use it now solely for exchanges in other places. We bought at the top of the market but today we would get peanuts for it. My feelings before Natalee was that it was a safe island with not too much crime. Playa Linda had been broken into a few times though. Very few murders that we knew of but there had been a girl murdered on the beach a few years before we stopped going there. I have tried to remember the details but for the life of me can't remember.

Before Natalee disappeared we were going to purchase a small house in Aruba and had a long conversation with the owner, an arubian native. She told us the drugs were out of control because of the transients now living mainly in the oil refinery town. There was a large piece of property opposite her that was for sale and she said it was owned by a drug lord from Colombia and his wife. She said they lived in Florida and the wife came back and forth all the time. She said they got their money mainly from drugs. She told us then that crime was rampant and she was really getting worried about Aruba and what was happening to it. She wanted to move to a safer part of the island but there is only so far you can go on Aruba!


Lot of people coming in from other countries, foreigners that were causing a lot of trouble. Would not make a very good real estate agent for Aruba would she! But that is their mentality. So very laid back. Live for their yearly Carnival, planning for it all year. That is why Aruba is in the state it is today. Lots of booze flowing at the beach side bars, many people letting their guard down.


Friends of ours went with their brother to have a meal and had close to $10,000 extra put on their credit card as did our friend's brother as he paid his own check. We went a few weeks after them to same place, paid cash, and the waiter tried to overcharge us as well. This was about four years ago. Now you have big European countries putting all this cash into Aruba. Cruise lines helping I am sure with getting new docks and hotels built there as well.

--Anonymous