When most people think of Bonaire, they think of incredible diving or snorkeling.  We found the island to be just as incredible on land.  We rented a car for a few days and had the best time going where we wanted, being our own tour guides, and seeing things on the island most people don’t see.  Tour guides are great, but we have always had the best time when we’ve rented a car and gone off on our own.  Bonaire has such a diverse landscape.  One end has lakes, flamingos, a national park, caves and hills.  Another side has flamingos, salt flats, former slave quarters and donkeys.  One coast is desolate and rocky, resembling a moonscape.   Bonaire is also very mystical, with Indian writings, and a rock that the original Indian tribes believed was connected directly to the center of the Earth. 

 

  Flamingos at the Flaming Sanctuary

    Piedra Bonaire (Bonaire Stone) 

Piedra Bonaire is an important site associated with the original mythical ancestor whose name is Boynay.  It is written in the Boynay Mythology Book, “Boynay Tey” that Peidra Bonaire is the birthplace of Boynay who is the first Bonairean “Yu Di Baranca Mama” (Son of Mother Stone).   Legend has it this stone is connected to the center of the earth.  To quote “Piedra Bonaire represents the navel rock of Bonaire; a central place in the mystical relationship between Baranca Mama (Divine Mother Stone) and the umbilical stone that once attached Boynay (Bonaire) to her deep womb under the island where she lives in Luga Bibu (The Living Place”).

Read the legend. 

 

 Early Indian Shaman astronomers   The drawings tracking the planets and stars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Birds of Bonaire

 

 

 

 Slave quarters

  

 

 

Salt Flats