Many restaurants on Bonaire are run by outsiders, mostly Dutch. French, Indonesian and Chinese food are all available in Kralendijk and so is New York pizza, at Pasa Bon, just north of downtown. The food, on the other hand, is surprisingly varied and surprisingly good. The town does have a six-lane bowling alley that shares space with the island's only disco, and there is an oceanside strip of bars and restaurants that accounts for most of the island's nightlife, but karaoke is about as wild as it gets.Īll in all, Bonaire is a place with the kind of sleepiness that frustrates teenagers and makes adults sigh with gratitude. And on days when no cruise ships dock in Kralendijk, which is quaint and genteel, many of the shops close down for lunch. There are more casinos (one) than traffic lights. With a population of only about 13,000, the island is quiet, too. But it's so flat that the highest points are the tops of the mammoth cones of salt at the Cargill Salt Company, which produces up to 500 tons of it annually I couldn't go by it without considering what that means in terms of French fries. The southern half of the island is far different it includes Lac Bay, a world-class place for windsurfing, and a flamingo sanctuary. It takes at least half a day to drive the park's rutted roads - longer than I anticipated, which is why I missed my dive lesson. (You can ride bikes through the park, but the rangers recommend that you be accompanied by someone in a jeep.) Part pirate's paradise, part jungle aviary, part cactus desert, it's beautiful, thrilling, eerie and a little harsh.Īs I began to explore it, a brief but furious rainstorm that hurtled in off the ocean was followed by glaring heat. Rincon is near the entrance to the Washington Slagbaai National Park, an impressive natural history preserve with rugged hills and a rocky coast that you need a four-wheel drive vehicle to explore. The patio restaurant serves fish and chicken in creole stews.
Rincon dates back to the 16th century, and along with its history, you can consume what everyone says is the best indigenous food on Bonaire at the Rose Inn. Or, on the mountain bikes that Cycle Bonaire rents, you can traverse the dirt roads that penetrate the dusty interior. With an inland, uphill turn you cruise along the shores of Gotomeer, a lake that is a sanctuary for pink flamingoes, and eventually end up in Rincon, the oldest settlement on the island, and now a quiet, dusty suburb. It's narrow, lovely and barely traveled listen closely and you can hear the persistent scuttle of lizards in the dry underbrush as you ride by. The main road plays peek-a-boo with the ocean. The bicycling on Bonaire, especially along the east coast, north of the dive hotels along the shore, is sensational. Even so, it rained every day of my visit, once or twice terrifyingly hard, if always for less than an hour. The island is often described as arid, and with your back to the ocean, the cactus-strewn, butte-marked northern end of the island can look like the outside of Tucson. I started more than one morning with an exploration of La Machacha and Reef Scientifico, the two reefs just a short distance from my room, but you can just as easily find things to do on dry land.Ībout 60 miles off the north coast of Venezuela, Bonaire is shaped vaguely like a boomerang, its concave side angled southeast. I ended up hiring a guy from Kralendijk, the capital, instead. The best they could do was offer me a spot on a dive boat if there was room. I had to pester them to arrange a dive lesson (which I then missed), and they wouldn't arrange a snorkeling tour for me by boat. The facilities were geared to experienced divers, and the staff seemed happier dealing with them rather than someone like me, a snorkeler traveling alone and seeking instruction in and around the water. The buffet breakfast was generous but undistinguished, and the staff was competent, if not solicitous. I had an apartment to myself, with a patio and a screened porch, a private walkway to the ocean and a television that brought in dozens of American cable channels in English, but no telephone. It's a comfortable place, with commodious if not luxurious rooms.
I stayed at one of the older and better known of them, Captain Don's Habitat, which has been around since 1976 and has grown into a campus of cabanas and villas.
Many of them can be reached from the property of Bonaire's dozen or so dive hotels, which exist essentially to answer the underwater needs of divers and, to a lesser extent, snorkelers.
Most of them are accessible from the shore. There are 86 dive sites in the park, nearly all of them either on the leeward side of the island (where they are identified by yellow roadside markers) or around the circumference of Klein Bonaire, an uninhabited cay nestled in the lee.
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