This is the truth.  In light of the Natalee Holloway case I'd like to tell a true story.

A few years ago in 2001 I went on a trip to Aruba with my wife.  It was a dry island.  People said it was a desert island and they were right.  There was not a lot to do there if you were not in the water and we ended up renting a jeep for the week. 

On the island there are two small cone shaped mountains.  I don't know if you can call them mountains but they are clear to see on the island and they jut upwards like pyramids. 

We wanted to explore a good bit and one day we drove towards them.  We worked are way toward the north east and found ourselves at the foot of the bigger one. 

It had a couple large radio antennas on it.  It even had a staircase ascending to the top. We assumed that at one time this may have been restricted area, but now, anyone could take a hike to the top.  At two points there were cement platforms. The first one about a third of the way up, the second about halfway up.    Near the lower one was a small hut to take a break from the sun.    It was about twenty or so feet off to the left ot the staircase path.  We parked the jeep in the dust and began to climb to the top.  It wasn't tough and it took a about 3 minutes to reach the top.  It was high and steep but because the grade was so great you got up it real quick if you didn't stop walking.  We didn't feel at all winded when we reached the top.  I think we were about 500 feet up.

It was a great view but there wasn't much to see.  The island is full of cacti.  There are no forests or lush expanses. It's dry, arid and not all that attractive for a tropical island. 

We take a few photos, posing for the camera we had some laughs.  We looked like a couple of tourists but we didn't look foolish.  She had on hiking boots I bought her, wearing shorts with a baseball cap.  I was dressed similarly. 

Then we began to head down.   What I mean is we decided to head down and we turned from the photographic location towards the steps but we were not heading down at all.  We had to work through some rocks before we reached the steps.  But we could see down to the foot of the mountain. 

I noticed at the bottom a couple guys started their way up.   Immediately I noticed they didn't make sense.   One looked Italian wearing a running suit.  It was baggy and he had a large gold chain around his neck and a blisteringly shiny gold watch.  He reminded me of Christopher of the Sopranos.  He was shakey and obvious in his movement.  The other guy was what we now call in America an African American.  But this was Aruba so I don't know what nationality he was.

He was dressed entirely different.  And this is why I got nervous.  My wife sensed it too. The guy was dressed in dress pants and a t-shirt with a sports jacket on.  It was big. 

What they wore just made no sense for being out in the open, far from a civilized location.  Things just didn't add up to them being there for sight-seeing. You didn't arrive at this location simply because you drove by.  This location was remote and you had to drive to get to it. 

As they came up, they began to separate.  Now if you are my ex-wife reading this... I'm sure you remember this too.  That was a scary incident.  

We both started thinking.  What to do?   As we discussed them, they had made all the ground they needed.  One had reached the second platform he had stopped right there and had both hands in his pockets.    If this didn't look obvious, I don't know what does.    The second guy, the bigger guy in dress pants, he had walked three quarters of the way up and stopped right on a step.  He didn't sit, he stood.    This put them about maybe fifty feet from each other.

My wife and I had our wheels turning on a train of thought.   Where these guys after our money or what?  My wife being an attractive woman at the time was in my opinion someone that I would really have to fight over to protect.   Meanwhile I had a son back home that I didn't want to end up fatherless.  Sometimes I think too much.  But these guys were not budging and I was playing out everything I was willing to do and willing to accept to get to the bottom of the mountain; with my wife. 

I said to her (can't say her real name for legal reasons) "Sally, you go first. If something happens I can come through with ahead of steam knock them over and you'll be free to run."  We agreed she would go first and she would run down the stairs making it harder for them to stop her if they decided to.   She did this.  And no sooner did she pass the first big guy in dress pants did he begin do descend back down towards his partner.

I then began to run down.  Now this was not easy for either of us.  This was a steep mountain and we really were scared and felt we had no choice but to move quick.  It meant these guys wouldn't have as much time to react or think on their own.  The guy on the bottom seemed startled when I began to run and motioned past my wife to look up.  I shot past him and she then had passed the Italian in sweat clothes.    Just then a truck pulled up near our jeep and four guys got out.  They looked nothing like the other men and they began to walk towards the steps oblvious to our strange plight. 

I thought to myself, this should change things, first off Sally is now safe and that was my main concern, but now I have someone to yell to if these guys hold me up. As I approached the Italian I could see him staring at me.  It was more than serious it was eerie and haunting.  I looked at his hands in his pockets as if they needed to pull something out and I snapped at him as I got closer, speaking up as if I was running down the stairs for the sake of exercise... "Nice day out eh?" and I ran past him. 

I passed the four men out for a walk and they all looked at me as if I was something puzzling to be figured out.  My wife was in the jeep. I had already given her the keys and instructions to start it once she got down.  I got in and we drove off faster than you can say "Wow!"

I look at our photos of the trip to Aruba from time to time. I look at the souvenir snapshot of our love, standing in the sunshine atop that mountain and I recall it as a happy moment that held an unknown future just ahead. I look at the photo of her smiling and think, "Little did we know that something scary was approaching."

Years later when Natalee Holloway went missing in Aruba I thought to myself.  That is not an island paradise.  That is a strange place and I have no interest in ever returning.    After all, from atop that mountain you could see Aruba's maximum security prison at the north east side.  There were criminals there, just like anywhere else.  I'm glad that whatever I thought may happen to us that day did not happen.  I could just be fooling myself that nothing was going on and that those two guys were just a couple buddies that had wandered out to the same place we were looking for a mountain to climb.  But you will never convince me otherwise.  I know those guys would have hurt us had we not made it as difficult as possible to detain us.  I think we crossed up their thinking just enough at crucial points that they didn't get to execute the plan of point a gun at us and telling us to stop.    She ran down at just the right time.  I ran at just the right time, things seemed to happen just right for them to pause in confusion. 

So if you ever visit Aruba, take a look at those to mountains and remember me.