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a8 local
Friday 5 September 2025

Aruban legends: Frenchman’s Pass

was known as Frenchman’s For the next few turns, the
Pass, and there have been hand appeared again. Af-
many accounts of spirits ter having had enough, the
roaming the area of Span- man decided to jump out
ish Lagoon. and he ran to Santa Cruz.

There are many ghost sto- Arriving at a nearby bar,
ries surrounding this area, he ordered a drink and be-
but one of the most famous gan to tell everyone about
one involves a lonely hitch- his experience. Everyone
hiker, trying to find a ride grew quiet, because they
back home in the dark realized he wasn’t some
rainy night. drunk messing around; he
was telling the truth.
Some time after trying to
hitchhike, the man saw a Some time later, two men
car approaching, appear- walked into the bar and
ing almost ghost-like in the one of them noticed the
rain. However, since he hitchhiker. He called out to
needed a ride real bad, his buddy and said: “Look,
he didn’t think twice and there’s the idiot who sat
jumped in. But to his horror, in our car when we were
he noticed that the there pushing it!”
was no driver in the front.
Paralyzed with fear, he French man’s pass is one
(Oranjestad)—If you ever heavily equipped with fire didn’t dare to get out, and of the few sites on the is-
plan on taking a group The history of the French- arms, the indigenous set- the car started to move. land that keeps the locals
tour of the island, you may man’s pass—and how it got tlers began to retreat, and on their toes. While most
pass through the French- its name—dates back to hid away in nearby caves. When approaching a ghost stories may not have
man’s Pass in Balashi. The the colonization era, when The French colonizers tried sharp turn, the hitch hiker real grounds—or some may
Frenchman’s pass (known the French tried to colo- to smoke them out of the braced for impact, but just even be a set up story for a
to locals as “Franse Pas”) nize the island, but were caves, but the indigenous when he though the car joke, this pass contributes a
remains a mysterious—and met with an angry mob of settlers ended up inhal- might drive straight off the lot to our culture of folkloric
spooky—road of which its indigenous settlers, refusing ing too much smoke and road and crash, he saw a story-telling.q
legend is told from genera- to give up their land. How- most died in those caves. hand appear out the win-
tion to generation. ever, as the French were From then on, this passage dow and turn the wheel. Source: visitaruba.com

Fun facts about cacti hedges “Trankera”

(Oranjestad) – When off- common, and those that still
roading in inland Aruba, stand are often not main-
you may notice some cacti tained. On the surface this
hedges around various prop- seems like a bad develop-
erties or lined up by certain ment, however this proved
pathways. These man-made to be beneficial for our flora
hedges are called “tran- and fauna. Naturally devel-
kera” and play an important oped flora around the hedg-
role in maintaining our flora es offers more shelter for
and fauna. fauna. Another aspect is the
propagation process. When
The trankera dates to co- pruning hedges, flowers and
lonialism, where settlers es- seeds were removed, which
tablished several ‘cunucu’ limits propagation to a mini-
(farm) on the island. Peo- mum.
ple either used stone walls
or trankera as a fence to So, though trankeras don’t
ward off strangers and wild play that big of a role in Aru-
animals that can feed on the ba’s agriculture anymore,
cunucu vegetation or cattle. our environment still reaps
the benefits of these long-
Nowadays, trankeras are less standing natural structures.q