Spoiler alert: Bonaire is my favourite island thus far in the Caribbean. That’s not a difficult feat, since I’ve only visited two islands in the Caribbean so far, but I wonder if Bonaire can be surpassed by the others easily.

There’s a tranquillity and peacefulness on the island, which I’ve only found in a few other places. The citizens of Bonaire seem to be so happy to be living there and tourists are happy to be visiting. Everyone is happy, which makes it very refreshing, relaxing and reinvigorating place.

Road Trip South Bonaire

Let me start from the beginning, I’ve split my post about the island up in two. It might surprise you but this island packs a punch; there’s a lot to see here. The amount of historical sights are limited, but the ever-changing landscape makes up for that. In a few minutes, it goes from rugged coastline…

… to desert landscape…

… straight on to mangroves.

And that’s only the South of the island, imagine what we found at the North of the island in Washington Slagbaai National Park!

My friend and I who were visiting the Netherlands Antilles together, decided to do this South island road trip after a morning dive (don’t worry, I’ll cover diving in future posts). We managed to do this trip within 5 hours, even though we stopped frequently and we had lunch along the way (I’ll tell you more about the lunch spot in the Wine & Dine post – keep in mind when you’re planning this road trip that lunch at the Kite City food truck is a must).

The only car the rental office had available was this gorgeous Toyota Hilux. I’ve always wanted to drive a pick up truck, so for me it was a dream come true. Until the “accident” a few days later, but more on that in my next post about North Bonaire.

Pekelmeer

The road trip started South of Kralendijk, near the airport. The first thing that caught my eye straight away when driving towards the South was the purple glow of the Pekelmeer.

The reason for this purple glow is because of the high amount of salt in the water. Flamingoes used to be abundantly present on this lake, but the concentration of salt is a bit less than it used to be before so flamingoes can be found further inland nowadays.

Salt Pans

Bonaire is known for its salt pans or ponds. The seawater is fed into large ponds and water is drawn out through natural evaporation which allows the salt to be subsequently harvested. The ponds are separated by levees.

The salt is transported onto ships from this pier. You’ll hear me talk about Salt Pier in more detail in a future post, because it’s probably one of the most spectacular dive/snorkel sites I have ever visited.

Slave Huts

Back in the day, the heavy work at the salt pans was mostly done by slaves. They lived near the salt pans, and since there are no cities nearby huts were constructed for them to live in.

The huts used to be made of out clay with roofs made out of leaves, but at the start of the 19th century these were replaced by stone huts.

These huts are so tiny, it’s hard to imagine anyone managed to fit into them at all.

Obelisk

On the way to the Southern tip of the island we passed by two formations of slave huts, as you can see in the picture above. One group of houses is white and the other yellow. Near the yellow houses, there’s a stone obelisk.

Obelisks were placed near every group of slave huts in the colours red, white, blue and orange (the colours of the Dutch flag and Dutch royalty) in order for the ships to be able to orientate. By the Southern most tip of the salt pans a flag was raised in red, white blue or orange to inform the ships to which obelisk they should go to pick up the salt.

I don’t know what’s written on the plaque on this multi-coloured obelisk, but I’m pretty sure it’s not part of the group of obelisks on the island which used to guide the ships.

Willemstoren

Willemstoren is a lighthouse at the Southern tip of the island. In the 18th century they didn’t want to build a lighthouse on that spot because it would also guide the enemy ships onto the island, but since so many of their own ships crashed a lighthouse was built anyway.

The lighthouse was lit on the 24th of August 1838 which is King Willem I’s birthday. It’s the oldest lighthouse on Bonaire and it’s still in use; although the light is lit automatically nowadays through the use of sun panels.

Mangroves

From the Southern tip we made our way a little bit more inside the island, because we would not be content with the road trip until we spotted flamingoes. The fact we didn’t find them in the Pekelmeer Flamingo Sanctuary was a bit troubling, but we wouldn’t let it dampen our spirits. Bonaire is known for its flamingoes right? I mean… Even the airport is named Flamingo International Airport!

We lost a bit of hope when we drove from mangroves straight into cactus country.

According to the map all hope was not lost as we would make our way back to the water soon. And sure enough, there they were! Standing, running and flying!

Lac Bay

Lac Bay is located next to the mangroves to the East of the island. With amazing blue and green colours, the water from this bay looks almost unreal. Lac Bay is a natural lagoon separated from the Caribbean Sea by a barrier reef. The surrounding mangroves make this nature reserve very special and important for the growth of many living species including turtles. You can see patches of healthy sea grass everywhere in the water.

If you want to partake in water sports, from Yoga Sup to windsurfing, this seems to be the number one spot to do it on Bonaire.

I’ll describe Jibe City in more detail in my Wine & Dine post, but it’s good to note here that there is a nearby resort, the Sorobon Beach Resort, where the golden hour can be enjoyed from a pier. Unfortunately, there’s no sunset in the sea on this side of the island.

Seru Largu

Our last stop on this road trip was actually more in the middle of the island, but since you can see the South (and the North but let’s ignore that) I decided to include it in this post. Seru Largu simply means large hill.

It’s worth driving to the top to enjoy the view over North and South Bonaire and Klein Bonaire (the island off the coast).

There is a monument at the site which has a text in Papiamentu, which means “Christ, Yesterday, Today and Forever”.

Conclusion

This is only the first of many posts about beautiful Bonaire. People thought I would be disappointed with Bonaire, because it would be small and there would be a lot of tourism. I wasn’t disappointed in the slightest, even though people were right on both counts. If you’re planning to go, don’t just go diving. Explore the island a bit, because its nature is beautiful. My next post will be about the North of the island. Don’t worry, this post will not be repetitive in the slightest because even though it’s only half an hour drive from the South, the landscape is significantly different.

Have you been to Bonaire? What did you think about the island?