Caribbean Netherlands

After scoping out the laundry mat the previous day, Tony decided he would stay and wash all our clothes while I returned the scooter by myself. Hmmm this proved to be quite the challenge . . . it’s more difficult than you would think (for a girl my size) to put a scooter back on its kickstand. You should have seen me try though, NOT a pretty sight. Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers!
Meanwhile, not anticipating the distance or the heat of the day, Tony had to haul our laundry for miles back to the scooter rental! See the picture below of my view at the beach where I was waiting for Tony. By the time he walked up, he looked like my sister Preet after the San Jose Marathon! A well deserved Rum Punch Happy Hour at the Caribbean Club for our last night was in order. We celebrated with Barbara and Yvonne while Huib did his best to replicate our favorite Italian shot (that we'd been talking about all week)--it wasn't quite the same but we'll call it Lago de Bonaire until we can get him the recipe for Lago de Varese (at least the green color was right!).

As most of you know, we spent most of the morning finally updating our blog! We hope you’re enjoying it! Tony was eventually able to lure me out of our cottage with the promise of authentic ice cream from Curacao around noon—banana with chocolate fudge in a waffle cone—yum. We walked around downtown window shopping. We did manage to send out a couple of postcards and hope to continue to do that every now and again.
We decided to take Barbara’s (manager at our hotel) recommendation for dinner at the Yachtclub despite being a little over our budget! No regrets there, this was hands-down the BEST meal we had on the island and probably the best one since Ruby’s birthday(s). An unexpected surprise was when the wonderful staff at our hotel had arranged for champagne for us at the restaurant. They started us off with Spanish olives that were so good that even Tony ate them (he hates olives). The amuse bouche was a broccoli flavored cappuccino--it was really novel and delicious. The snow crab cake was so fresh and the crispy wontons layers in the middle gave just the perfect amount of crunch. Tony had the truffle pork tenderloin (which the photo does absolutely no justice). . . it was soooooo delectable and tender. The brownie dessert with ginger mascarpone and a tropical fruit was a perfect finish to the meal. The service was outstanding too---Thanks Kim! Despite Barbara’s plea for us to not mention this restaurant (since it’s already hard to get a table) we can’t resist because it was such a great experience. After such a glamorous evening. . . we had to ride the scooter back home like Dumb and Dumber!

The weather is still not the best for diving so we exchanged our old rusty truck for a spiffy new scooter. The guys at the scooter rental looked doubtful about Ruby’s ability to ride a scooter since she had never been on a scooter by herself before. After a few very slow laps around the parking lot we were off, at a blazing 5mph down the road! She was having so much fun and I wish I could have taken a photo of her riding it through town! We rode up and down the west side of the island looking for snorkeling spots and taking photos of animals next to the scooter. The night finished with FREE rum punch at our hotel and Heib (pronounced Houp) our friend behind the bar filling our glasses mostly with rum. Then with our liquid courage we decided to brave salsa lessons beachside. Ruby’s toes are still recovering. . .

Ruby and I are now officially Open Water PADI Certified Divers! We completed our dives downtown at a beach called Cha-Cha with our awesome dive instructor Niels (seen in the picture below). We went to a depth of 55ft and got to see some amazing fish including a 2 foot puffer fish with a face that looked like a cartoon character and a peacock flounder which is flat with its eyes on one side.

Niels had to keep Ruby from aggravating the cute puffer fish because she really wanted to see him puff up! If you would have seen us in the pool a few weeks ago you may have had your doubts but as with most things like this trip, when we put our mind to it, we can accomplish it. After a long day of diving we hit up the rum punch Happy Hour at Caribbean Club and watched a Creature Feature on sea life around Bonaire . . . we may have to get an underwater camera someday!

Got up and went snorkeling at a small dive site called Andrea 1, by the way, don’t forget your water shoes/dive boots because the terrain getting in is rough. Unfortunately we could not finish our scuba certification today due to bad weather. We decided to drive over to a small bar called Jibe City at Lac Bay on the east side of the island. We finished a bottle of Chardonnay while talking to Sonia, a journalist from Germany doing a travel story on the ABC islands. While a little tipsy and distracted by great conversation, Ruby got eaten alive by mosquitoes. Meanwhile, I tried to spend our daily budget drinking beers with some of the Caribbean Club staff that happened to be there on their day off. Boy am I glad we brought antihistamines and hydrocortisone but I doubt the 3oz are going to last through Bonaire!

As most of you know we started our SCUBA classes in San Jose a few weeks ago and finally had the first two of our long anticipated ocean dive classes with Buddy Dive Center. The Sun Ocean Front dive site was beautiful. We went down to a depth of 40 ft and were underwater for over an hour. It felt like we were inside a gigantic aquarium. Some of the highlights of this dive were eels, schools of tropical fish and an octopus hiding out under a rock.

After a day of diving we had to buy groceries to stay under our budget (since the costs in Bonaire are about the same as in the U.S). We quickly learned that since Bonaire is a Dutch speaking island, all food labels are written in Dutch! It was a bit of a challenge to pick up the ingredients we needed to make spaghetti, but I will say that Tony’s spaghetti was as delicious as ever despite our improvisations.

We rented what we believe to be the crappiest rusted truck on the island (it usually took around 4 attempts to start and would max out at 40 km/hr!) We drove around the island looking at slave huts, salt mines and did you know that pink flamingos can fly? Two flew right over our heads as we drove the South side of the island. They’re really rather awkward looking with long necks and legs in a straight line. We weren’t camera ready at the time so this is one of our new missions on Bonaire. On the far side of the island we had lunch at Rose Inn in Rincon. The goat stew and grilled fish where great but I don’t know what the blocks of brown and yellow goo were on the side? Turns out the yellow one was a mixture of pumpkin and polenta and still not sure about the brown one but Tony ate all of it anyway. If you are planning on going there please bring cash because they don’t take credit cards or IOUs ;-)