With our flight not leaving until 3:40 PM and the Flamingo International Airport being the least busy airport I've ever seen, we figured we didn't need to be there until 2 PM. Factor in some island time to return the rental truck and figure out why I couldn't get a mobile passport, and we had half the day to work with before heading home.
Checkout wasn't until 11 o'clock, so we left the apartment at 8:45 AM and drove to the nearby Te Amo Beach, by the aiport. On the way out of the resort, we stopped and returned our snorkel gear.
The beach was virtually empty, so we spread out in the shade and enjoyed the beautiful morning. It hadn't reached the daily high of about 88°F yet, but a few cooling swims were still necessary.
The pier in the background is a docking point for tankers to offload jet fuel directly to the airport, across the street, via a short pipeline.
We spent about an hour at the beach, while it slowly filled in with locals and other tourists. The beaches apparently turn into big, family BBQs on the weekends, sometimes with a food truck around lunch time. (The regularly-present food trucks seem to only be there during the week, oddly.)
Having to check out by 11 AM, we headed back to the hotel for some quick showers and to pack up the last of our bags, then stored them in a very secure location by reception (that happens to look a lot like a housekeeping closet).
Our next adventure, just around the corner and then a mile or so up Kaya IR. Randolph Statius van Eps (this is the name of the road), was the Donkey Sanctuary Bonaire.
We popped inside to get the overview and buy our tickets, and then arranged our wet beach attire in the bed of the truck to cook in the sun.
The donkey sanctuary is a roughly 1-hour driving tour through 100+ acres of space containing some 800 donkeys. The extremely social ones are crowded at the entrance, waiting for visitors. They are prevented from wandering out by the red grate in the road.
As would become a theme, they seem to have learned that they can just block the road until you stop, then rush the windows and demand attention. We had to run the gauntlet to get through, which took a solid ten minutes.
Visitors are prohibited from feeding them, so they are not expecting food, or anything really, beyond some pets and nose boops.
Some of them are not shy at all, and stick their whole heads in the windows, if they're tall enough. I imagine if you were in a lower car, they'd basically climb through the windows. We saw several people go in on scooters, which must have been interesting.
They were extremely confused why Sabrina's window was up (she is allergic to almost every animal, and was horrified that we were all "just able to touch them"), and repeatedly bumped it with their faces.
Not too far inside the entrance, we took a detour to stop at the "watch tower". For the first time since we arrived, I put the AC on and we rolled the windows up most of the way. I think Shannon was avoiding the sun, and Sabrina was huddled in the front seat, trying to avoid being secondhand itchy on our behalves, but Christie and I risked being swarmed, to climb the tower.
As the donkeys slowly converged on the truck, we enjoyed the somewhat-desolate view of the area.
It was very windy up in the tower, and the whole structure shook slightly. Christie quickly returned to terra firma and fought her way through the herd.
After leaving the watch tower, we did a very slow lap around the course, going as slowly as possible to avoid bumping any ambushing donkeys (or running over any of the many, many lizards).
If you want to check on the donkeys, the sanctuary has some live streams on their website. I suppose we were probably visible on them, at some point.
They essentially lined up on either side of the truck, (sometimes) patiently waiting for a turn. Occasionally, they nipped at each other when they wanted to get to a window.
Several times, one of them decided to use the sideview mirror as a scratching post. A few tried to take a bit out of the plastic cap on the bed, or the tailgate. Mostly they seemed curious, not mean.
Sometimes, they'd trot up to us when they saw us approaching, only to stop at arm's length and stare. Many were not interested in us at all, and just watched us slowly roll by. At least twice, a donkey darted out of the bushes directly in front of the truck while others blocked any escape from the rear, like we were caught in some sort of mob hit.
This one may have been looking at himself in the mirror? I don't know. He stayed like that for a long time, until the truck moved.
After a generous hour of donkey petting-zoo safari, we reached the exit. Back near the visitor center, there were separate fenced areas for seniors, mothers with foals, or other sick/recovering animals.
It was just after noon, and it was feeding time for the seniors. I think they mentioned having some other animals (flamingos, turtles?) somewhere, but we didn't stick around for the information session at the end.
We decided to try to return the Hilux around 1:30, but also wanted to eat a real lunch before our 4+ hour plane ride, so I dropped everyone off at the resort restaurant and then went to get gas while they ordered.
The nearest gas station was past the airport, past the lagoons with the flamingos, about two miles away. When I got there, it was fairly busy, so I backed into a spot in front of a pump to put the filler neck on the correct side. When I went to the window to ask the cashier to turn on pump 4, she stood up for a better view and told me the pumps are one-way and I had to turn the truck around.
I incredulously asked if she was serious; another customer chuckled and said "yeah, she pulled that a few times with me when I first moved here". I suggested maybe they should put up signs, or paint some lines on the concrete. She then started yelling incoherently until I left and turned the truck around. It was all very bizarre.
The delay wasn't a problem, though; I only needed 7 or 8 gallons, and then returned to the resort and parked by reception. I joined Sabrina, Christie, and Shannon across the street at The Beach (confusing name for a restaurant). The food hadn't yet arrived, anyway.
After lunch, we retrieved our luggage from the secure storage facility, drove the ~3/4 of a mile to the airport, and discovered that the Budget office was empty. Two friendly Canadians informed us that they'd heard from the guy in the next little office that they'd gone to The Sand Dollar; we weren't sure if that meant they were out to lunch, or had gone to a resort to help some customers who locked their keys in the car, but were assured they'd be back shortly.
While we waited, the Canadians and I walked the 100 yards or so over to the terminal and got paper tickets at the United check-in counter. There was no line, because there's essentially only a single flight at a time; the digital signs over the counter showed "United check-in: Newark, NJ" or similar.
There was also no line at security, although we were sort of exit-interviewed by an employee who seemed like he just wanted to talk to people. We got most of his life story in about 4 minutes, during which he also worked in the standard screening questions about our luggage, and then he stuck some stickers on our passports.
The guy stamping passports asked if we were going to Newark... I glanced around and asked if there were any other options, since there was nobody else in sight; he said the only other flight was for the six people flying to Curaçao. I said that sounds good, and maybe we'll go there instead, but he replied that the plane only seats six.
We spent more time waiting for the Budget office staff to show up than it took to get through the airport, and had time for a (very decent) coffee at the small bar. The departure lounge is the smallest I've ever seen, that I can recall.
It turned out the reason I wasn't able to get a mobile boarding pass, but everyone else had no trouble, was that I'd been randomly selected for additional security screening (SSSS), along with five or six other passengers. They set up a folding table by the gate, and then did a handful of half-hearted bag searches and pat-downs.
I waived everyone ahead of me in the SSSS group, and then was literally the last one out the door and up the steps.
Our flight left almost 15 minutes early, and we were treated to a beautiful view of Lac Bay, with windsurfers visible from this distance, as we departed Bonaire.
The flight was just over 4.5 hours, so we landed just after 7 PM. After waiting in line for customs, getting back to the car, stopping for a bite to eat on the way home and dropping a few people off, we made it home before 10 PM.
Final thoughts and notes in case we go back, in no particular order:
It's only been a few years since we went to Aruba, but I forgot how absolutely brutal the sun is that far south. The near-constant ~15 mph wind hides the fact that you're hot and sweating all day, which makes it easy to become dehydrated. Like Aruba, the entire island is nearly a desert (it's probably "semi-arid" or something like that, officially); they only get 18" to 20" of rain per year, depending which source you believe.
Bonaire is just above 12° N latitude, which is as far south as I've ever been. Out of curiosity, I just checked, and the northernmost point on the island is just below the southernmost point on Aruba. The southern tip of Bonaire is 475 miles farther south than the extreme southern point in Hawaii, or 864 miles south of the lower edge of Key West, FL.
A number of locals asked how long we were spending on the island, and were of the opinion that 4 or 5 days wasn't long enough. We really ended up with 3 whole days + 2 half days, and definitely saw all of the highlights. It would've been fun to snorkel a few more spots, and it felt like we spent a lot of time in the car, but I don't know that spending a full week would have changed much. The entire island is 111.2 square miles, fully a third of which is occupied by the national park and the salt ponds. You don't need much time to explore the rest, although you could easily spend an entire day in the national park.
Speaking of which, I'm not sure I'd ever do the long route through that park again. 2.5 hours of driving on rough, dirty roads in that heat is brutal, even if there are a bunch of stops with interesting things to see. It would be great if they'd add another entrance/exit on the west coast, instead of requiring that final hour of driving back to the eastern side. You definitely need something with ground clearance to explore the park, and would probably need 4WD if it were wet/muddy. We managed just fine with a 2WD truck, although creeping around some of the holes at low speed is annoying with a manual transmission. Same applies for the donkey sanctuary, regarding low-speed driving.
Superficially, Bonaire feels very similar to Aruba, just less-developed and with a slower pace to everything. Things like the cactuses, donkeys, Dutch food, architecture, local language, and snorkeling experiences are similar, but there are some other differences. The official currency of Bonaire is the USD, which seems odd (Aruba has their own currency, the Florin). There are dive shops all over the place, and it seemed like the majority of vehicles were small pickup trucks, often with a pile of air tanks in the back. The downtown/capital area isn't nearly as Disney World-esque as it was in Aruba, either.
We encountered a lot more iguanas in Bonaire than we ever saw in Aruba. I think the only one I saw there was at the airport, on the day we left. On Bonaire, there were smaller lizards absolutely everywhere, and we probably saw iguanas every day.
It sounded like almost everyone we met spoke at least three languages, if not four or more: Dutch, English, Papiamientu, and sometimes Spanish. The majority of tourists we encountered were Dutch, although there were some Americans and Canadians as well.
We didn't really see much local/traditional Bonairian cuisine, although we also didn't make much of an effort to search for any. Sabrina and I don't really think of the Caribbean as being foodie vacations, although there have been the occasional incredible meal/restaurants on some of the islands. As such, we didn't have high expectations for eating in Bonaire, especially because fancy food in tourist areas tends to involve reservations, dress codes, and/or high costs; we're there for the weather, views, nature, ocean, etc., not for fine dining. And with the nightly low temp being in the high 70s, I'm not interested in socks, shoes, long pants, or collars.
As I mentioned several times, the snorkeling was excellent. It's a shame we didn't see any turtles or other large marine animals, but the water conditions were great. It was bad luck that there happened to be a ship docked at the Salt Pier site, as everything we'd read suggested that was an excellent location, but really all of the places we went in were good. Shannon had never snorkeled before, and might be disappointed in the future if she tries it elsewhere, as it really was amazing in Bonaire.
We were initially hesitant to book lodging literally next door to the airport, but it was a non-issue. Apparently there are only 12 flights per day at the Flamingo International Airport, some of which are very small prop planes going to Curaçao. Almost every night, we saw the KLM flight from Amsterdam sitting on the runway or boarding, depending if we were going or returning from dinner.
The Grand Windsock was lovely, in a good location, easy to get to, and a great value. The internet/wifi situation wasn't amazing, but that's not surprising, given that it's shared with everyone at the resort.
We typically try to avoid areas with lots of cruise-ship visitors, but it was easy to avoid any cruise crowds because there was only a single day with ships in port. I don't know if this is typical or if we just got lucky. This is easily planned around, using cruisemapper.com.
The water supply for the entire island is RO-filtered, and was good to drink everywhere we went, meaning that you can happily drink tap water at restaurants if they offer it. (This is definitely not the case on some other islands.) We still picked up a gallon(ish) jug of water to bring along in the cooler, to refill water bottles.
We ultimately skipped a trip (via water taxi) to Klein Bonaire, for several reasons. First, none of us are sun worshippers, especially at that latitude, and the main draw appears to be the beach around most of the island. The entire space is devoid of any trees as far as we could see (we had a view of it from the apartment porch/balcony), there's no water, no food, no bathroom, meaning you have to bring anything you need with you. Second, the water taxi prices that we found were $25 per person, round trip, which made it seem like a bit of a tourist trap for cruise passengers. (For context, we could apparently have rented a motorboat for $185 for half a day, including fuel). The other selling point appears to be snorkeling, which is possible literally anywhere on the entire west coast of Bonaire.
The news of the Tobago oil spill reaching the eastern shore of Bonaire just before our trip was definitely concerning, but it ended up not being catastrophic (as far as we could tell). The response from Bonaire seemed to be fast and thorough (not that I know anything about oil cleanup, but Lac Bay closed a few days before we got there, and they had reopened it for windsurfing by the time we left). Obviously it wasn't great for people who had planned to stay at the resort there, but I didn't get the impression it inconvenienced anyone else.
If we ever go back, maybe I'd do more research and find a way to make Klein Bonaire work. There are at least 3 or 4 different companies that operate water taxis, all on different schedules leaving from different locations. It's only a 20-minute ride, though, and I don't enjoy the beach that much (especially in the brutal, tropical sun), so I'd prefer to just take a boat trip. Other than that, I think I'd probably do nothing but snorkel and read a book the entire trip.
It seems very far away, but depending on the wind... it might only be an hour (or less) longer than a flight from Newark to southern Florida, or anywhere else in the northern Caribbean (Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, etc.)
There was some odd rule with the credit card processor that literally everyone on the island uses; you could only use the tap functionality up to $50, and anything over that required the chip to be inserted. Being a Dutch territory, and primarily full of Dutch tourists, there isn't any expectation of tipping at restaurants. Reading discussions on TripAdvisor, etc., some posts suggest tipping 10% is great (but not expected). You'd have to tell them to add the tip before charging a card, though. I think we tipped at a few places where the service was actually good. I seem to recall one restaurant adding a service charge automatically, but I don't know which one it was.
If you go to the Cadushy Distillery, don't fall for their sales pitch about it being the only place to buy their product. They have small (and expensive) bottles that are under small enough to get through airport security, but the (sole) store past security sells Cadushy products, including the larger bottles, for maybe $1 more than the distillery. 🤣
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