Flora

Bonaire is a desert island. Not like the kind where you find a hatch and a scottish guy from the seventies, but the kind where you hunker under the sparse shade of a palm tree and imagine your friends turning into giant bottles of Gatorade. There arent really lush, tropical areas over most of the island, just scrub and succulents. Palm trees are, of course, de rigeur, though they appear to be largely man-planted and are mostly near the beaches or homes. There are a few types of them, and some have coconuuuuuts.

More interesting than the palms are what my mother has been calling "beezlebub" trees (a corruption of baobab, to which they are apparently related; actually called Bursera Simaruba or Brazilwood in the real world.) The tourist brochure I picked up says these trees were  valued in the 17th century because they contain a pigment used to make red paint, and so the dutch exported them. The brochure also says theyre locally known as "tourist trees" thanks to their red skin which peels off after time in the sun. 

I am enchanted by them because something about their form, branching and curves is vaguely anthropomorphic. some of them look like tortured dryads. I am fairly sure that if I shouted "for Narnia" some of them would get up and walk. If I was making a movie of Dante's Inferno I would cast these trees for the wood of suicides.

On the less dreary note, there are also Tamarind trees, which are covered with pods and bright orange flowers.

There are several other floralish things on the island, mostly in oranges and yellows.

A majority of the vegetation, (even of the non-cactus variety) sports spikey-pokey bits like it is all preparing for a role stinging children in the hunger games. If Bonairean kidlets run around barefoot, they must have feet of steel.

Also in the spikey category are the several types of cactus, some of which have been domesticated and are used for fencing. It isnt terribly unusual to see houses surrounded by carefully lines up Kadushi cactii. This same type of cactus is used to make an alcohol called "Texi-Bon", and some other alcohols.

There are also Kadushi, Prickly Pear and Agave all over the island, including a vertitable cactus forest on the "mountains". 

I had never seen Agave outside of a Margarita before, and it is one weirdass plant. It starts out all mild mannered and short, like some mutant Aloe Vera (which are also found here)...

..and then every so often, it goes all porn-star and grows an enormous.... uh.... thing (bloom? stamen? antenna?) They get so tall that they look like weird, Suessian (ok, maybe Freudian) trees.

Thus far, no one appears to be making tequlia on the island, despite all of the wild agave. There are two distilleries making alcohol from the kadushi though, more on that later.

Lastly, since grass isnt really a thing here, its reduced to a tile-worthy design. For only $3.20 you too can have a lawnlike livingroom.

Our Fine Full-Feathered Friends

Bonaire is a not a place that concerns itself with petty issues like liability. Most of the cars here look like they are equal parts deathtrap and duct tape, and seat belts are strictly optional. As a result, there are a number of formerly domesticated animals that wander around and will observe you through your car window like a Jellystone bear looking for a pickinic basket.

The first animal I ran into, was of course the Iguana who climbed up my balcony. He has been dubbed "Romeo," and I havent seen him since his death-defying leap. 

The courtyard and yard are covered with birds and small lizards. The former are kept fat, happy, (and possibly diabetic) the olde fashionede waye-- a steady diet of straight sugar added to feeders hanging from the palms. As you would expect from an animal consuming large quantities of Hawaii's finest, the birds are talkative, hyperactive and move at something close to the speed of light.

The most common birds we see are colloquially called "chibi-chibi". (Note: due to the nature of my family and their propensity for renaming things, Im not sure if this is just what my parents call them or if it is island-wide.) The actual name for the birds is Bananaquit, which is fine by me, because I think bananas should tender their collective resignation and leave the planet. They are tiny (the birds, not The -Fruit-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named) and super chirpy. They regularly attend my mothers "happy hour" event in the front yard. 

We counted at least ten in the picture below. There may be more. They were lined up to get to the feeders full of sugar, like fat kids at a free cake convention. 

Other birds that attend the feeders include: golden warblers, something my mothed calls orangeheadgreenbody (pictured below), troupials (below the OHGB, both pictures courtesy of my father), doves, and mockingbirds. Most of the rest of these are less foolhardy/more fearful than the Chibi, and as a result i havent managed any pictures of them yet.

While driving on the island yesterday, Amateur Ornithologist Dad also spotted an endangered Lorikeet, which was a bit paparazzi shy and moved before I could get a decent pic. So heres a Not-very-decent one to show his colours.

Also in the elusive-shy-and-hard-to-photograph category are the islands flamingos, which we found wandering near the salt flats. They were doing some sort of neck-bending mating ritual and/or re-enacting parts of west side story. (When you are pink, you are pink all the way, from your first brine shrimp to your last dying day...) The pictures are poor because they are far away and my lens lacks length, but you get the idea.

We also saw a whateverthisisidontrememberbecauseitstoolateatnight (update: its a frigate bird) and some terns hovering over some fishermen. its hard to tell from this picture, but the thing was huge. It might have been a pterydactyl. Pretty sure it was hunting those men.    Next up, mammals! In another post though, stay tuned. 

Fauna

I mentioned the donkeys before, and Im still trying to capture their wonderful singing voices on record. Apparently their ancestors were originally employed in the salt flats, and they have since gone native, roaming the streets and desert in gangs and generally causing donkey mischief. We caught some on their way to make a prank call. (Yes, that is a real phone booth. There are many on the island, where they seem to be thriving despite being on the endangered species list in the rest of the world.)

We passed at least ten donkeys in our island tour, i suspect there were actually more than that, but like many of the animals here, they share a colour palette with the scrub and are really hard to spot from a moving vehicle. Unless, of course, they are preventing your vehicle from moving. They have silly rabbit ears, and I find them quite endearing.

Where there aren't donkeys, there are goats, which also do a (surprisingly) good jorb of blending into their surroundings. 

Im relatively certain their only natural predators here are the natives, who serve them in a curry sauce, so i doubt this camoflague is the result of evolution. Consummate hide-and-seek players, wise goats carry concealment wherever they go. The goat in the center here has chosen to hide his presence using a cactus paddle. On his face. You will probably need to look closely to even know there are goats in this picture, that is how good they are at hiding.

Self-Congratulatory Goat practices his fancy-prancy high step, having outfoxed you at hide-and-seek.

Meanwhile, CityGoats dont give a damn, prefering to hide in plain sight...

...Or behind rocks

Im not sure what the life of a goat in the metropolis of Kralendijk is like. Maybe these goats are actually trying to pick up tourists on this corner in exchange for empty cans or old boots. Maybe this is really how recycling on Bonaire works. (edit: added another goat and a donkey from today's tour)

Beaches, Salt, and Slavery

Bonaire hates sleep more than a fanged clown on a carafe of meth-laced coffee.

Last night people were setting off M80s or some other bright and loud metric equivalent in the shell of the unfinished hotel up the beach. Of course this started an hour after I had finally fallen asleep, and continued until sometime after 1AM.

It also rained again last night, which means im 3 for 3 with days of rain on this (normally) desert island. Forecast for tonight is moar heat, moar rain. Thanks to the overcastedness yesterday, and some spf 110, i managed to mostly escape sun burning though i have a few small spots on my arms and shoulders and apparently burned the crap out of my lips. Today looks like it will be mostly cloud free til evening, and I will be sunscreening like im the goddamn TSA.

We went for a trip around the island today and i took two gajillion photos.

there are some cool old buildings on the island that are decayed down to their concrete and coral bones, all of which make for good photo ops. 

Salt is the main export here, probably because no one wants to buy rocks or cactuseses. The salt is from seawater that goes through a variety of staging pools, all of which turn bright pink from bacteria. then they build giant salt pyramids that can be seen from all over the island.

Two of the beaches have slave huts that were built in the 1850s to house slaves working the salt flats. they are tiny little houses all in a row. there are two sets, white and "red" (they're really whitish-red), on different beaches.

Many other beaches were visited. they had waves, and rocks, and one had kiteboarders.

bonairerama

so last night there was also a thunder storm and i wound up not sleeping again, which makes sights like this big lizard on my bedroom balcony even more disturbing.

shortly after i took this photo, he took a flying leap into the back yard and scurried off seemingly unharmed. fortunately when its not lizard occupied this is the view:

after my parents did a few hours of house keeping, my dad and i went into "town" for rations. This is not a fancy resort town: 

we stopped at chachacha beach (real name) so i could get a few pictures. fancy fish were swimming right up to the seawall.

after we finished restocking the house, we went for a swim then a walk over to the beach. i can see from my bedroom, which is called lighthouse beach.

the sand is imported. naturally the beaches are essentially just a huge pile of broken coral or are fossilized coral they call "iron shore". its a pain in the ass to walk on, barefoot is not an option and i wouldnt want to lay out in the sun on it, but the water is a million different colors of blue and fairly warm.

there are the ruins of a half built structure on this beach. apparently it has quite the history and my parents have scavenged a number of things from it over the years. they call it "Esmerelda" which was the named for the planned resort at one point. Construction seems to be a risky business here, there are a lot of half-built abandoned structures.

and, heres some more just because.