Southern Caribbean Cruising — ABC Islands; Bonaire

The “B” in the ABC Islands stands for Bonaire, and we’re going to look at this destination over the next two weeks. That’s because, unlike “A” (Aruba) we did a lot more than just shopping. We went on a brief foot tour of the capital city Kralendijk, followed by a minibus tour that would take us to the southern end of this Caribbean Netherlands island in the Leeward Antilles.

Upon arrival Ursula and I picked up a paper copy of the walking tour map you see above and set out on foot. The more historical foot-tour stuff I’ll show next week. Today I’m going to concentrate on the unique, colorful buildings we saw along the way starting with this charming little shop on Kaya Grandi (Main Stree):

The storefronts along Kaya Grandi are awash in bright color. Take for instance the Mona Lisa Bar & Restaurant:

But that image doesn’t give you the full impact until you get a line up a whole row of brightly colored buildings along this main shopping area:

Continuing our trek northward along Kaya Grandi:

Beyond Kaya L.D. Gerharts the colorful building begin to peter out, but keep trekking:

You’ll still find some interesting photo subjects if you do:

It was beyond the Tiki bar pictured above that we stumbled upon a rather colorful car rental agency, Rento Fun:

Yep. Those are Land Rovers for rent. The chartreuse one is a particularly nice touch. But that’s not what really caught my eye. What drew my interest was this circa 1945 Dodge truck:

Much beyond here interest waned, and we headed west for the parallel Kaya J.N.E. Craane for a look along the water’s edge. Under construction was a new pier, and efforts were underway to relocate coral:

On Wednesday I’ll show you our trek south on a guided tour we picked up near the cruise port. Until then:

Слава Україні! (Slava Ukraini!)