Having tried a couple of ship’s tours and not enjoyed being herded around in a group, we had nothing planned for our cruise visit to the island of Bonaire. So we got off the ship early and decided to see what tours were on offer which were nothing to do with diving!
There were about a dozen kiosks each offering various tours by van but we were attracted to the one with the golf carts, which we had seen parked at the side of the road past the kiosks.
We had a chat with the owners, Bonaire Cruisers Golf Cart Rentals, and they advised that we could drive the whole island in 2 parts, north and south. As I was carrying our UK driving licences with us for ID, we rented a golf cart for the day. Petrol was included.
Now I have never ever driven a golf cart before so it was quite scary at first. The first thing to realise was, that when you press the accelerator, the cart has a little think before it springs into action!!
We decided to drive the south part of the island which was where most of the tours seemed to go. The roads were easy to navigate and no one was in a rush which was very fortunate as the cart didn’t go much more than 25/30 mph. Local drivers were very patient.
We chugged past the airport and saw lots of new build villas, very colourful.
Soon, in the distance we could see white mountains and as we got closer we realised that they were made of salt. We drove past the salt flats which were a gorgeous pink colour.
One of the benefits of the cart were that we could stop whenever and wherever we wanted to which, of course, we did. We stopped by a beach where we spotted a turtle in the surf and some sausage shaped stones. Also, the cart was open sided so it was very pleasant driving along rather than being cooped up in an air conditioned van.
We also stopped to see some flamingoes. Then we came to some Slave Huts, small white buildings which housed 4 to 6 slaves. They were made to work shifting the salt to the ships. A tour bus stopped while we were there but we were glad we were independent.
We stopped to talk to the fishermen and women who was hand casting their nets. It was very easy to catch fish that way.
We chugged on to the lighthouse passing an obelisk on the way. Strange lighthouse. It was closed but there was no light at the top!
We saw some donkeys and some windmills but another highlight of the tour was our discovery of the most beautiful beach you could wish to see. There were some rustic bar/restaurants on the water’s edge plus board rentals. The water was shallow and very safe and the most beautiful blue. We parked the cart and bought ourselves an ice cream and then went for a long paddle bitterly regretting that we had not brought our swimming gear.
Back on the road again, after around 4 hours, we headed back to town. I have to say that roundabouts were scary in view of the lack of acceleration, but we navigated our way to the town car park where we parked amongst the cars so that we could have a wander along the main street in Kralendijk.
We decided to leave the northern part of the island until our next visit. Yes, there will be a next visit, as we enjoyed it so much.
