Caribbean Countryside
May 2025
It only takes an hour to drive the entire length of Bonaire. This worked in our favor when we returned from the Blow Hole and Bonaire’s Longest Tree (both pictured) to find one of our truck tires flat. The nut holding the spare was seized and could not be loosened. We carefully inched a few hundred yards towards civilization until able to re-establish cell service.
The rental company dispatched a mechanic (not balking at the fact that we were 20 minutes from pavement) who arrived within the hour. He had no better luck freeing our spare even with his tools. He popped his own extra tire onto our truck, which thankfully had the same lug pattern but a mismatched diameter. With the differential complaining the whole way, I gingerly drove back to the airport where our truck was replaced with one that had four tires of the same size.
This allowed us to continue exploring nearly every inch of the island over the course of several days. The power of the waves on the island’s windward side struck a stark contrast to the serenity of the leeward shore. We saw the still-active salt mines and the huts that housed enslaved people who once worked in them, noting the eerie juxtaposition of such horrors occurring on what could have been the set of a Wes Anderson film.
We visited lighthouses, donkey and flamingo sanctuaries, several beaches, and Washington-Slagbaai National Park. Here we drove a 3-hour loop, terrified because the dirt roads were in the same horrible condition as the one that caused our prior tire incident.
The truck survived, and so did we, even after setting the Strava record for the strenuous scramble to the top of Mount Brandaris, Bonaire’s highest point. The payoff was a panoramic view of almost the entire island, a map come to life.
Recipes: Classic Cuban Negative, Reggie’s Portra, Vibrant Arizona, Bright Summer.
See the first series for photos from Bonaire’s capital city.
