Bonaire – Old World Pace

Roosters crow at almost any time of night or day, billy goats walk the streets, donkeys bray, and the dogs are howling. The dogs on Bonaire even socialize in groups like they do in Greece or Turkey. You can sit in a Hillside Apartment overlooking Klein Bonaire and see a relief on the horizon that transports you back to the images of community and song on an Island like Cicily.

We decided to spend most of January 2023 in the warmth and in the hospitality of the Dutch in Bonaire.  Their motto: Once a Visitor, Never a Stranger. Unlike Aruba the accommodations are among the least expensive of the Carribean. Like Aruba, however, we discovered the Dutch Pastry Shop and the largest grocery store on the Island – Van Den Tweel.  We rented a Van scooter for $225 for the 11 days and this limited the things we could bike back to our accommodations at the Hillside Apartments. The scooter by the way is not for the faint of heart, nor the inexperienced.  We experienced unusually frequent rain and with it the roads became as slick as ice.

As for our running streak with the USRSA – we found that the shores facing Klein Bonaire had interlocking stones and a level walk from the harbor bearing the cruise ships to a little white condo on the north end of the so-to-speak boardwalk.