Today's main objective was to get to Washington Slagbaai National Park by noon, so we'd have a full five hours to experience it. It's a 30+ minute drive up there, and we had to stop to pick up lunch along the way, so I think maybe we left the apartment around 11 AM? (After our usual ritual of sleeping in, having breakfast, packing up a bunch of stuff, applying generous coatings of sunscreen, etc.)
We fought through Saturday morning traffic, downtown, to stop at Between 2 Buns for lunch supplies. Then, at least partly because it was on the way, we made a brief pitstop at the Real Dutch Bakery to see what was on offer.
From there, it was about 20 minutes to the park entrance / visitor center. While we waited in line behind a (I'm guessing from the accent) French tourist who was demanding to be let in despite having lost his national park pass, I wandered off and admired the very out-of-place whale skeleton.
It has a somewhat macabre story.
Once we'd confirmed our credentials and gotten past the gatekeepers, we had to stop and clean our snorkel gear. It had rained heavily (but briefly) this morning, and there were still some mud puddles to navigate.
It was about 12:15 by the time our driving tour commenced. We obviously opted for the long ("much more scenic") route through the park, which signed us up for about 2.5 hours of driving on a one-way road like this, in its best parts. The brochure/map is available on their website, if you want to follow along.
Mostly, the scenery was acres and acres of cactus, up and down hillsides, and walling in the road on both sides, but occasionally there were ponds. If you look closely, you might be able to see the flamingos through the cacti. The park map calls this location "saliña matus".
The Hilux was still fairly clean at the start of today's adventure, as it got washed by the heavy rain. Again, flamingos are in the distance.
Christie tried asking them to come closer, but I don't think they heard. I was surprised how loud they were, and we could hear them squawking across the pond.
There were many blind hills like this, but the road is one way so it doesn't really matter. I worried we might run into a donkey, but we didn't see any in the park.
Our next stop was at Playa Chikitu, home to the only sand dunes on the island.
It was very windy (mercifully), and the surf was extremely rough.
The ground here was volcanic rock, rough and full of wind-blown sand.
The violent waves battered the cliff face, splashing up onto the rock.
Next up was a geology lesson, as we drove through a desolate landscape around "Seru Grandi" that the brochure quotes a visitor referring to as "lunar".
Still in the lunar landscape area, we stopped at the Suplado Blow Hole. It was just past 1 o'clock when we stopped.
The blow hole fired a cooling mist into the air, which the wind dutifully blew into our faces. It was refreshing in the midday sun.
Just 10 minutes down the road, we stopped to explore Boka Kokolishi. The bay is protected by a low wall of rock, so the water is gentle and there's an actual beach there.
We debated having lunch there, but there wasn't really anywhere to sit, nor any shade, so we pressed on, hoping to find a suitable venue at the next stop.
The next stop, about 20 minutes later, was Malmok, where the main feature is the stone ruin of a lighthouse.
We made a brief stop at Boka Katuna to check out the small beach. This spot, of course, had a few concrete picnic tables with benches, and some shade. They were already occupied, though, which made it all slightly less facepalm-inducing.
This was a possible snorkel site, but we'd been advised to save our limited snorkeling time/energy for another location. I did wade in to cool off, anyway, and almost got knocked down by a wave.
At last, we found a sign indicating we were close to Wayaka—our snorkel spot for today. It was approaching 2:30 PM, which was perfect; we'd been sternly told to leave Wayaka by 3:30 PM to made it out of the park by closing (at 5 o'clock), and our snorkel sessions had been lasting 30 to 45 minutes, previously.
Just after 2:30, we were in the water (with maybe a dozen other people).
The surface of the water was fairly calm, but there were gentle swells shoving everyone around a bit. Even with those conditions, the clarity was still very good.
As was becoming a habit, I spent some time hovering over the parrotfish.
There were several large schools of (what I'm going to call) blue/black/gray tang, but I'm not sure that's correct.
They didn't seem to care that I swam through/with them for awhile. Safety in numbers, I suppose.
I attempted to herd them out of the shallow reef, toward Sabrina, but they were having none of it. Maybe she seemed more threatening.
This elder rainbow parrotfish is easily the largest fish any of us saw on this trip. As usual, it's tough to estimate its size, but I think it was closer to 3' than 2' in length. It was large enough that it was startling to see up close, and it was not afraid of me at all.
Today, again, we saw a lone, sullen porcupinefish. It was not shy, though, as I dove down to take this photo.
There were two or three of these black triggerfish swimming together, but they were incredible skittish and wouldn't let me get close.
At one point, I realized I'd lost my buddies, but was able to sneak up on them, underwater, while they gathered (looking for me, it turns out).
40 minutes in, and we were still following schools of fish around the reef.
Eventually, we realized almost everyone else had gotten out of the water, and called it a day. Christie and Shannon had headed in just before Sabrina and I turned back, and they got banged up a bit while trying to find the channel through the reef.
We headed back up the stairs to the parking area; we were almost the last people there, except for a Dutch couple. We wanted to stop briefly at Boka Slagbaai, and were advised we needed to leave there by 4 PM.
I thought I'd read somewhere that it was possible to rent any of the three "cabins" there, but I can't find anything about that at the moment. In any case, it was the only bathroom option we'd seen since departing the visitor center (over 3.5 hours prior).
It would also have been a great lunch stop. We've collectively decided that the one-way route should run in the opposite direction, so that the tables would be useful for picnic lunches for everyone who isn't at the park when it opens at 8 AM. (Because who wants to hit the road before 8 AM on vacation?)
Anyway: across the road, we were able to sit briefly and watch a dozen or so flamingos.
Being a protected habitat/sanctuary, visitors aren't permitted to get very close.
We'd only been stopped for exactly 7 minutes when we were rudely interrupted by the chase-car park ranger beeping his horn.
Re-realizing this meant that we potentially had another hour of driving on this dirt road, we hustled to the exit at approximately 10 to 15 mph. Some stretches of it were in (relatively) decent condition. The shadows of the cactuses made it difficult to see the holes, though.
At one point, we stopped to watch a large bird that was just standing in the middle of the road.
Some parts were lumpy enough that I nervously joked about shaking the bolts loose from the truck. We had to pass someone in a small 4x4 who felt that 5 mph was an adequate speed.
The steep parts were often concrete-clad, presumably to avoid the road turning into a muddy hill-climb contest after sudden rain showers.
Surprisingly, there were still some mud puddles, almost 8 hours after it had stopped raining. (... assuming it stopped the same time there as it stopped down where we're staying, anyway.)
Just before we reached the exit, we came upon a twin to our Hilux, stopped on the side of the road. I think it was a Dutch couple, although I seem to recall the guy wearing a Yankees hat? Anyway, we asked if they were alright, and the guy said something like "No. Is the ranger coming behind you? We will just wait for him, it's okay."
After wishing them good luck, we continued on our way. In the rearview mirror, I noticed that one of their front tires was angled about 45° out, but the other was straight. I suspect the ranger didn't manage to get everyone out by 5 o'clock today, as it was probably 4:40 PM when we exited. What a shame.
All joking aside, the woman in the ticket office was right to turn us away yesterday. We were under the impression that it would take 2.5 hours to "experience" the park, including the driving, nature-gazing, maybe a swim/snorkel, etc., but the drive itself takes about 2.5 hours on the long route; we would have literally had to just drive through and see nothing up close. (It would have been nice if their website suggested "entry possible until 2:30 PM if you take the short route and do nothing but snorkel in one place, but we recommend 12:00 entry at the latest for the long route" or something to that effect.)
In the end, it worked out that we could dedicate most of a day to visiting the national park, even if it demanded a total of almost 4 hours of driving.
On the drive back to Kralendijk, I finally stopped at this odd establishment, just to get some photos of the impressive cactus fence. (It was our fourth time passing it...)
All over the island, we've seen fences grown from cactus. There's some sort of railing or wire guiding their shape, almost like they're woven into it, but the effect is impressive. I imagine it's also a very practical solution for deterring foot traffic.
I thought maybe this was a sign advertising a business that uh, installs? these fences, but upon closer inspection it's appears to be some kind of restaurant...? Google maps lists their hours as "Sunday: 11 am–3 pm" and that's it. Bizarre.
It was around 5:30 PM when we got back to the resort. After that adventure, we all agreed it would be best to just relax by the pool for an hour or so, with a drink, and decompress.
By the time the sun was setting, we were starting to think about dinner plans, so everyone headed upstairs to the suite to prepare to pile in the pickup again.
We returned to the waterfront, downtown, where most of the restaurants are, intending to go to a Cuban place that we'd passed several times. It was just after 8 o'clock by the time we parked and walked a bit; they offered to seat us at 9 PM, maybe 9:15.
Instead, we ended up at Karel's Beach Bar, which might more accurately be named "Karel's Pier Restaurant". We had a lovely seat over the water, and enjoyed some better-than-expected food while listening to live music. It was 9 PM by the time we got food, anyway.
Tomorrow, we're going to attempt to squeeze in half a day of tourism before heading home, starting early. Our flight isn't until 3:40 PM, but we have a laundry list of administrative tasks to do before leaving (return snorkel equipment, check out, gas up and return the Hilux, etc.)
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