Bonaire (1) – the First Impression
A long long time ago, corals were raised from the ocean, which form the island Bonaire. Compared to the famous great barrier reefs which take hours to reach via boats, here snorkeling and diving are so easy and cheap. You pick up your equipments and drive to the ocean for a swimming. There are so many spots you can go, as the entire island and shores consist of beautiful and live corals, fire corals, lettuce corrals, brain corals …The water is crystal clear, the ocean is calm so you don’t need to fight with waves, and of course, there are many variety of fish and other ocean creatures —– such an amazing underworld. Bonaire people protect corals very well, and I barely see any bleached corals. Many divers carry a small bag of concrete and plant corals.
I love Aruba for its happiness and enthusiasm. I love Bonaire even more for its naturalness and wilderness. The airport is just a big room, we walked outside to board the plane. But hey, look, we board and get off from the back door!
Bonaire surely matches my personality and it reminds me of the years when I grew up in China. The road is muddy with big puddles and people ride on the back of their pickups. There are no high rises at all. The constructions are here and there, and the buildings are not well planned, but surely with signature bright colors of yellow, red, pink and green.
Even the cookies here, reminded me of the ones my mom bought from the dinning hall of her factory when I was little. I have ate 3 pieces in one sip 🙂 so yummy.
They also have this interesting flavor of oat milks like Matcha and popcorn and I even took some in my luggage back home.
Bonaire does not have big beaches. The one where people likes to hang out is near the airport called Te amo beach. There is some coral and fish just near the shore. The food trucks here are amazing. They have burgers with a giant piece of tuna in it or you can get tacos/wraps with local catches like barracuda. I have dived down to see a cute barracuda during my snorkeling.
Fireworks here are legal! You often can see firework sellers on the road, and there are many varieties like the ones I played in China when I was little. We bought big ones (20-30 dollars each) and fire cracks and played them on the roads. I heard the beach will be full of people around new year time.
A lot of very cool places we visited are actually not named in their tourism maps and no tourism traces. We randomly drive around or looked at the maps and discovered them.
I heard it costs around 1200 dollars to rent a one-bedroom apartment. I surely can enjoy living here for some months :). People bought apartments here, block sometime for their own vacations and then the management companies help you rent out. The island is busy almost throughout the year. The owner of our hotel said they fly from Netherlands monthly to take care of their businesses. The good thing is that there is a direct flight from Netherlands so we see quiet a lot dutch and European tourists. One of our neighbors is an old dutch lady. She said she planned to fly to south America for some fun but there was no plane tickets available due to busy holiday seasons, so she “stucked” here 🙂
