Happy Boxing Day!
So we’ve spent another day on the island, we are well fed for now, we have water, today we did have to forage for our own lunch as we were not going to be at the resort during the 12:30-1400 time frame they allow for lunch. We ended up getting hotdogs and fries at the Scu-bar next to the resorts dive shop, Toucan Dive. It was a good lunch.
We had planned on trying to get some lunch downtown but we were too efficient about getting souvenirs and there were still a lot of places closed today. We were somewhat surprised as there was a cruise ship docked today. That’s a lot of tourist’s dollars they missed out on. They did have some little independent street vendors set up but things were a little spendy for what you got. Jewelry must be a big tourist buy, a lot of places where we go sell over priced jewelry.
We went on a quad tour at 12:15 today, the reason we missed the buffet lunch. Bonaire reminds me of being in the southwest United States. The terrain is covered in cactus 🌵. They use the cactus to make fences to keep the roaming donkeys out and there is a distillery here that makes liquor out of it. It can also be eaten, mostly in a goat soup.
We were feeling the humidity this morning but on the quads it felt very dry with the dust. I was eating Emily’s dust as she took the lead behind our guide and she maintained it the whole tour even after our stops. She made sure to keep the others that we’re trying to get in front of us behind us.
Our tour took us out into the desert or so it seemed, on the east side of the island. The thing about the ground though is it’s not regular sand and gravel, it’s mostly coral gravel/ sand and some other remnants of the sea floor that has pushed up to become land, it had aspirations I guess. Where we were the ground looked very much like the sea floor where we want to snorkel. Very rough, not someplace to be without shoes. We visited a lighthouse that has been refurbished and is currently solar. They also have radar on it for looking for human and drug traffickers. There was a old lighthouse keeper’s house that had not been redone and sounded very dangerous to allow people in, some (limit 3 at a time) did go in, I snapped a few pictures from a ways off. I’m not looking to end my vacation early. I already bashed my toe on the tub, not as cool as Emily’s toe injury from Kitesurfing. The tour was fun but very dirty!!
Tomorrow morning we are probably doing a discover scuba class again, providing they have equipment for us. We have our books and waivers to do tonight. If they don’t have equipment they will take us out snorkeling I believe to the little island we can see from shore, Kline Bonaire. I’m hoping that they have equipment. I like the scuba idea but I think snorkeling is actually a very good alternative. It really doesn’t take a lot of effort to snorkel in the salt water, unless you have low single digit body fat you float fairly well. It is nice to get closer some times and scuba would make that easier. I think there will be mostly snorkeling in the future just because of the easy and low equipment needs compared to scuba but I do like being able to try it with the discover scuba class.
Before dinner tonight we went for a scooter ride around the south end of the island. It was an excellent ride. Scooters are a good fit for the island, it’s not very big and scooters don’t go very fast. On a regular motorcycle you can cover the 10-15 mile we went tonight pretty quick, on the scooter we took about an hour. We did stop at several places to see some of the sites along the road. The road is actually a black top of sorts. Seems like it’s harder as it doesn’t have ruts, it does have rough patches and areas where I am guessing they have cut in utilities under the road. The one road that goes around the south end is one lane once you get past the area where they load salt onto ships. Mostly on the inland side is salt ponds and the ocean side is areas people go diving or kitesurfing on the western side.
Not much goes on when you get farther south and on the eastern side. The trade winds come from the east and would blow you into the rocks. There maybe some beaches north of where we turned to head back to the resort, it was getting to be dinner time and we had an early lunch.
Along the road We did get to see some donkeys and flamingos. We stopped at the slave huts and the obelisks that were indicators for grade of salt and where to park you ship to get loaded based on what you wanted.
We also encountered a motorcycle street race. I knew the scooter wasn’t up for it. They were running some quick bikes. There was a lot of black marks on that section of road. We came up on an area that I could see they were doing burnouts at a bit before we came upon the riders parked on the side of the road. We got to see the start but they were to far down the road to see which one was the winner. One of the bikes parked was a 214 mph off the showroom floor bike. That’s a bit overkill for a place with a max speed limit of 38 mph.
Dinner tonight was not as crowed as last night. We are thinking either a lot of people left or they figured out they really didn’t have to be there at six like the note stated for a full evening of dining.
We’re going to fill out our scuba stuff and hopefully post our updates. We need some internet, our connection has been spotty. US Cellular also didn’t have a plan for certain on this island so all I have is wifi. One of these trips I am going to learn about doing the international SIM card swap. I’ve read about it and it sounds easy but I haven’t really seen it advertised. They say a lot of times you can do it at the airport. We are on vacation and don’t really have a lot of need for our devices, we do like to get these updates out though.
I haven’t seen any places that offer special island food, I think the things I have noticed is a Caribbean chicken that is chicken legs in a sauce and fruit. There is a Caribbean ceviche and that was on the buffet so I skipped it. I’ve had some that was good, I didn’t care for the Peruvian ceviche though. And there is a cactus soup with goat. No rodents on a stick or fried under a brick here.
Hopefully we cam get these and some pictures posted!!
Traveling with Emily! 