4-Wheelers

We’ve had another busy day and I’m wearing down.  Bill has a long update so I’m going to make mine short.  I’ll add pictures with his. This morning, we took our scooter into town for some shopping.  Bill needed a hat for our 4 wheeler tour this afternoon, we needed a backpack for water bottles and I wanted a cup.  Many stores were still closed for holidays, but we found everything we needed.  We ate an early, light lunch then left for our 4 wheeler tour at 12:15.  It was really interesting.  Bonaire is basically an island desert.  The entire island got pushed up out of the ocean probably relatively recently in geological terms and the whole place is made of rock and fossilized coral. Fossilized coral has the same consistency as concrete with sharp edges.  The tour was fun, but it was the roughest 4 wheeler ride I’ve ever had.  The guides went pretty fast along the “trail” which was a semi-flat rock surface with holes and crevice. It used to be the bottom of the ocean.  We visited a lighthouse and a bat cave.  The bats were deeper in the cave so we didn’t see them but we did see some feral goats and donkeys and a bazillion lizards.  That’s the only thing that can live here.  

We were coated in a thick layer of dust after the tour so Bill took a shower and I went to swim for a little while.  The water here is really amazing.  It’s beautifully clean and blue.  I swam without my snorkel gear today and there were all kinds of little fish swimming under me.  It’s hard to tell how far away the bottom is because you can see right to it.

We had some time before supper, so we took a lovely scooter ride in a loop around half the island.  We got some pictures of the salt producing operation and some other historic sites.  We found some ocean sponges on one of the stops we made.  The weather was perfect by the time we went.  The sun was setting and there was a nice breeze to cool things off.  The part of the island we visited was greener than other parts we’ve seen.  There were powerful waves crashing on one side of the road and wild bird refuge ponds surrounded by green plants on that other.  It was a very nice evening.

I’m exhausted and Bill is writing a more thorough update than me so you’ll all get a better story and pictures from him!  We have scuba tomorrow morning at 8:30, so that should be an adventure!

Sent from my iPad