Flamingos, Donkeys and Iguanas
12 September 2014 | Bonaire
Steve
The last few days have been active which is unusual for us, there are so many dive site to check out plus a new island to explore and old friends to catch up with which has filled our days in nicely. There is a bus that takes us to the supermarket on Tuesdays and Fridays for free so we can buy all the naughty stuff we had trouble getting in other places so we went on Tuesday and filled the nibbles cupboard.
That afternoon J & S climbed aboard PANNIKIN and we sailed across the bay to a dive site which was recommended to us by Andrew from EYE CANDY where Jeremy, Susie and Steve went down for a nice wall dive while Ange had a snorkel closer to shore. As Ange was swimming about a dive operator in a large dive boat approached and told her to untie PANNIKIN and bugger off. When she told him she couldn’t as there were still three people on the bottom he was very rude to her and left. We checked out with various official people later and we were quite within our rights to be there, he was just a jerk!
The four of us hired a car and set off to have a look at the island on Wednesday which turned out to be a full day with lots to see even if the island is not all that large. There were iguanas, pink flamingos, Caribbean parakeets and colourful lizards to keep us entertained as we drove up to the museum at the national park on the north of the island. The landscape is rough and dry and cactus abound which made us wonder how anyone could survive in the early years here. We continued back towards town and found the only KFC on the island which also sold cold beer! This was too much for Steve so we had to stop for lunch. The next stop was a windsurfing lake followed by a drive around the bottom of the island where there is a large salt pan operation with its pink waters and huge piles of salt waiting to be loaded for export. On the roadside there were the huts for the slaves that worked the salt operation in years gone by. What a miserable existence those poor people must have endured. From there it was on to the donkey sanctuary where we had a great experience. There were hundreds of donkeys of all ages, shapes and colours and we were encouraged to get in and experience their beautiful nature.
The wind is constantly blowing which if it was anywhere else it would be unpleasant, except here it just moderates the temperature and allows a comfortable sleep at night and adds to nice feeling of Bonaire.