Kralendijke, Bonaire, Dutch Antilles

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Bonaire is an island in the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. Its capital is Kralendijk, located near the ocean on the lee side of the island. Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao form the ABC islands located 80 km off the coast of Venezuela. Unlike much of the Caribbean region, the ABC islands lie outside Hurricane Alley. The islands have an arid climate that attracts visitors seeking warm, sunny weather year round. Bonaire is a popular snorkeling and scuba diving destination because of its multiple shore diving sites and easy access to the island's fringing reefs. Bonaire is part of the Netherlands Antilles.

After a day at sea Bonaire was a welcome shore day, but we had no particular high expectations of an island we were told was just salt pans and flamingos. In the event, it was to prove one of the better stops, at least in relation to expectation.

The pseudo Dutch architecture in Kralendijke was not quite as phony as it had been in Aruba and we had all the morning and much of the afternoon to explore. This time, we were able to rent a car - $US 60 - for an off road jeep style car which was a good deal between four of us (we shared with the navigation guy - Brian and his wife Jean). The tourist office manager tried to talk us out of doing the national park as he said it would take too long. He was right, and we didn't see the salt pans in the south, but figured it was worth it.

We drove up the coast towards the north of the island and kicked off with a sea water lagoon which was riddled with flamingos. We stopped off at a designated area and saw lots more birds and trillions of lizards among the cacti and scrub. It was not dissimilar to the Nevada desert and obviously very dry. We continued on to a small town, Rincon, and then drove about 5 miles to the Washington Slagbaai National Park which cost us $US 10 each for entry. The tickets were valid for 3 years (unlikely we would be back in time to use them again though!). We were given tags with emergency phone numbers and times when we had to be away from specific destinations if we were not to be caught overnight in the park - no chance.

The blurb we were given told us that the Washington Slagbaai NP is located on the northern end of Bonaire and comprises 2 former plantations Washington and Slagbaai which have a total area of about 14,000 acres. These two plantations once supplied salt, charcoal, aloe extract and difi-divi pods (these are pods from a large shrub native to the Caribbean, Mexico, South and Central America and the tannin extracted is used in leather production - thanks Wikkipedia) and goats for export to Curaçao and Europe. The Washington Plantation was secured in 1969 upon the death of the owner "Boy" Herrera. He negotiated with the government to take over the plantation upon his death with the condition that it was to remain undeveloped for the enjoyment of the people. The WNP was founded on May 9th 1969 and was the first Nature Sanctuary of the Netherlands Antilles. In 1979 the Slagbaai Land Plantation was negotiated and added to create the WSNP. The park is managed by STINAPA Bonaire.

We elected to do the short circuit, about 25 kilometres, on the very rough dirt roads, said to take an hour and a half if we didn't stop. Whilst, for the most part these tracks were OK, in parts, they were so rutted we had to be careful to avoid taking the sump out, even with a high clearance vehicle. The drive was fine, starting off inland in dry hilly terrain. Again, trillions of lizards and lots of interesting birds.

After about 45 minutes, we arrived at the coast. We all went for a swim and a snorkel before returning to the car for the trip back to Kralendijke. We left ourselves plenty of time to negotiate our way out of the park and return to the ship. All in all a very enjoyable stop.

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