Bonaire

We arrived in Bonaire late last night, and got to wake up with the Caribbean sun shining in our window. I got up before Gavin, and sat reading and enjoying the breeze in a hammock on our terrace... That is, until the sun came up far enough to touch my skin, then I had to move to the terrace on the other side of our apartment - my pasty white self forgot my sunscreen... Marji, the owner of our apartment, knocked on our door to say hi, since we didn't meet her last night, and she gave us directions to walk back to the airport so we could pick up our rental car; Budget had closed before we arrived to pick up the car last night. Marji's directions included "now you're going to have to jump a couple fences..." :) But by jumping the fences, we saved ourselves a good 20 minutes of walking in the hot Bonaire sun.

A hammock and fresh, Caribbean breezes on our terrace.

The view of Kralendijk from our terrace.

We picked up a little bright blue Yaris that only had 30,000 miles on it, but definitely has been put through its paces and is a bit beat up. :) We then headed down to Lac Bay for lunch.

Bonaire is really small, only about 250 square miles. We are staying in the main town, Kralendijk, So Lac Bay, though on the opposite side of the island, was only about a 15 minute drive. Lac Bay is a protected bay with perfect white sand and perfect Caribbean-blue water, and is only a few feet deep probably about 1/2 mile out to sea. It is supposed to be some of the best windsurfing in the world. Gavin and I had lunch a Jibe City, a beach bar that Marji had recommended. We had salads, sandwiches, fresh banana/kiwi juice and enjoyed the fresh breezes of the outdoor bar. The wind was pretty slow today, so there were not many windsurfers to watch. We booked a private lesson to try it out tomorrow!

Gavin enjoys fresh banana kiwi juice at Jibe City.

VERY rocky beaches in the south. No pristine white sand here. :)

The barren, arid landscape of south Bonaire.

 

We then took "the long way" back to Kralendijk, going around the southern tip of the island and the salt flats. The landscape in the south is pretty barren - very rocky and arid in the center, and on the coast lots of sea flotsam and plastic crap has washed ashore. People have taken to making sculptures out of the driftwood and pieces of plastic that are on the coastline - not skillful sculptures, mind you, more like what a two year old would do if they had the height or the strength to pile things 5-6 feet high. :) There was one of these at least once every quarter mile. Also, we noticed a lot of yellow painted rocks on the side of the road, with names on them like "Alice in Wonderland," "Red Slave," "Vista Blue" and more. We figured out these are marking the myriad of shore diving sites on the coast - shore diving being that you walk into the water a few fe3et and suddenly there are lovely things to see. (rather than having to take a boat out to dive sites, Bonaire is almost all shore diving!)

Just south of Kralendijk is the salt factory, and the salt lakes where the salt is collected have a bright pink hue due to microorganisms in the water. The collected salt is in huge, bright white conical piles waiting to be collected and shipped away.

The salt factory of Bonaire with huge piles of salt!

Gavin in front of the salt factory.

The pink salt lakes.

When we got back to Kralendijk we had to go to the grocery store to stock up the apartment. We got a second rude awakening about how much things cost here when we spent about $80 on simple things like eggs, tea and milk... (the first rude awakening was $42 for lunch of a sandwich and two salads... We thought this was just because it was a touristy place, but I guess even basic groceries cost a lot here!)

Then we went back to the apartment and took a "siesta" - still tired from our 3am wake up and full day of traveling yesterday. We got up and Gavin tried his hand at making a fruity island blended drink - basically a piña colada with some mango juice added, but very tasty! :) We sat on the terrace and read for a while while finishing off his blender full of fruity goodness, and then we drove into downtown to have dinner.

I enjoy Gavin's fruity cocktail in the hammock.

We happened to arrive right as a parade was starting! I am guessing it must be for Carnival, since everyone was dressed up and dancing down the street behind trucks with huge speakers. The music was so loud it made me feel like my whole body was vibrating to the core. Different groups of people dancing had matching costumes - and the groups were all ages, from adults, to teens to little kids, all sparkly and colorful and painted with makeup, even the boys! The parade was pretty short and only lasted about 10 minutes, so we continued on Kaya Grande toward our restaurant of choice.

Carnival revelers "wineing!" :)

More "wineing." :)

Bobbejan's Take-Away was a bit north of the main downtown, but it was recommended as a good BBQ place in our trusty Lonely Planet. Gavin had a huge plate of BBQ, including really tasty ribs, and I had an Indonesian style chicken satay with peanut sauce. Indonesian food is common here; it was brought over by the colonial Dutch. Though the restaurant name includes "Take Away" and there were piles of people waiting in the front for their take out orders, there was also a seating area in back, where Gavin and I sat under a canopy since it had been raining off and since we left the apartment.

After dinner, we headed back to downtown Kralendijk to have a drink. We stopped at Little Havana and I had a mojito. There was a rock band playing when we first arrived, and they were actually really good, but I think they were just doing a sound check since they only played about a minute each of a few songs, then stopped playing and didn't come back the rest of the time we were there.

Seems like the night life is a little slow here - not a lot of people around, maybe just because it is Sunday night. Most of the few bars were pretty empty, so we headed back to our lovely apartment to go to bed early. Tomorrow we will get up a bit early to go learn to windsurf! :)

 

 

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