Bonaire Again

We have traveled to Bonaire twice in the last few years. I guess I never posted about the first trip in December 2018 because we were soothing our hearts over the recent loss of a close family member. But apparently we liked it enough to visit again.

Travelling internationally in the time of Covid-19 is not for the weary. If you find navigating TSA and Immigration/Customs a challenge normally, you don't want to do it with additional protocols for Covid.

Bonaire is still part of the Kingdom of The Netherlands. Consequently the Dutch flock to Bonaire during the holidays jammed onto the daily 747 KLM flight. We also discovered that due to Covid, 'breakers' who are college grads right out of school, traditionally take a year off before joining the real world and places that were previously options for their sabbatical (Indonesia for example) are no longer available, so there are tons of them on Bonaire. This generally means lousy service in restaurants and lots of them don't speak fluent English or Spanish. 

But enough of that. 

1000 Steps

You go to Bonaire if you love the water, enjoy water sports or truly want a place to do almost nothing. It's a desert island and tourism is the #1 source of income, probably followed by the commercial salt business that has been going on there for centuries.

Salt Pier

Salt marker for ships

There's windsurfing, kitesurfing, snorkeling and scuba diving. We go for the latter two and a lot of the do almost nothing but relax. 

Divers down!

 

The first trip in 2018 we stayed at The Bellafonte which are condos that are run like a luxury hotel. Fabulous location on the sea, large sunny dock that stretches out over the Caribbean with easy access into the water. There is a small pool and at the time, the property hosted regular happy hours.  We stayed two weeks in a two bedroom/two bath unit on the second floor with a balcony where we spent a lot of our time. The property has a partnership with VIP Diving to supply dive tanks which are replenished daily, you make arrangements with the dive shop directly. 

Bellafonte-Bonaire

The second trip in December 2021 we rented a villa a little farther down EEG Blvd. It was a double villa and because we initially planned to have both sides filled (but Covid 😡) we rented the entire property named Salt & Pepper for 18 days. It was next to the Ocean Oasis Beach Club and Flamingo Dive shop which was perfect, in theory, for our group. The view and in particular the sunsets were spectacular!

Salt & Pepper

The View

AS for food, well the Dutch are not known for their cuisine but we highly recommend El Mundo in downtown Kralendijk. It has much more of an island vibe, the food is great as is the service. 

We also tried Sebastian's because we couldn't get a table when we visited in 2018 we reserved way in advance for 2022. It's a lot of hype IMO, food was ok, service was mediocre, but the sunset view is fabulous.  

View from Sebastian's

Another dinner spot we tried was Joe's Restaurant which was nice. All outdoor seating and it's a training restaurant, or so the signage indicated. The food was good, service was good too. We would probably go back to Joe's over Sebastian's.

Joe's Restaurant

Our go-to really became The Beach. We ate here on our first trip and back then it was half the size, mismatched tables and chairs and a limited menu. But it was good food. Today it's grown across two lots, added swanky club style chairs, walkways, tons more seating and a much bigger menu. 

The Beach

There are things to see and do on Bonaire such as...

Visit the Salt Worker Slave Huts

Watch Flamingos

Check out Ft Oranje

Gruta du Lourdes

Cruz Sera Largu

Bonaire Museum

Giant Windmills

Paris in the Time of Covid

 We've been to the City of Lights dozens of times. My spouse grew up there. Never in all that time have I ever seen the city so empty. We visited at the end of August into the first week of September and it was devoid of people. 

Let's start with a some lesser traversed spots in Paris. We strolled through the Marais to the Place des Vosges on a Tuesday morning. Usually this place is teeming with people, kids playing at any time of the day. On this day I counted only 6 people. 

Place des Vosges - mid morning

Hotel de Sully - mid morning

Another day after lunch we wandered down Rue Rivoli and through the side entrance to the Louvre. This is always tourist central, jammed with people waiting to get in, people coming out, sitting by the fountains, taking selfies with the pyramids.  Here's what we saw:

After the end of summer holidays in France, typically August 31, people return to the city but even then there are always tourists from other countries. It was rare that we heard anything besides French spoken and maybe the occasional English.  On September 2 we strolled from our apartment near Gare de Lyon across the canal St Martin and then to the Isle St. Louis to Notre Dame. 

This was about noon and it was barren. A few people wandering down the side street next to Notre Dame looking at the progress of the restoration and viewing the outdoor exhibits but never have I seen the square in front of the cathedral completely empty. 

At the time we left you had to be vaccinated to even get on the plane but we are so we went. The French government had also recently required a "Pass Sanitaire" for you to do just about anything except grocery shop and go to church. We applied before we left but never got our passes. We were able to get 3 day temporary passes after a negative Covid test at just about any pharmacy and those allowed us to eat out and visit the Hotel de la Marine. As we were heading home they announced France was considering a restriction to only essential travel again. 

Ultimately we are glad we went to see my spouse's 94 year old mother, who is just fine and had no problem keeping up with our 10-12,000 steps every day!

Place de la Concorde

Jardin Luxembourg

Palais Royale

Vacation Non-Vacation

 After a year of not traveling at all (unbelievable for our family) we needed a change in scenery. Desperately! We checked our options for some of our usual island destinations (Curacao, Aruba, Bonaire, St Croix) but couldn't make any of them work so we opted for the next best islands: The Florida Keys.

A week after the dawn of 2021 we packed our stuff and flew south. It was great to get first class seats for what we would pay for cattle class on most domestic flights. We landed in Miami, met the other family for lunch in Key Largo and caravanned south to Chardonnay House in Key Colony Beach, a man made area of canals at the northern tip of Marathon. 

This house was a very welcomed respite from the past 24/7/365 of living in our house.  We had 4 bedrooms, lots of desk space and lots of outdoor living space to essentially quarantine somewhere else. We worked and went to school the first week, in between dives and trips to the grocery store.

There were lots of walkers and bikers in the neighborhood and people were genuinely friendly.  Must have had something to do with the warmer, sunny weather?! Sunset Beach Park was at the end of the street and had nice views of the ocean. 

And then there was the diving with Captain Hook. It was more than chilly for our crew that is used to diving in warm waters (like 80+ degrees) but a good time was had by all!

At the end of our two weeks of non-vacation we all flew home with tentative plans for when we can all travel again and Covid-19 is behind us!

SXM Still in Recovery

We just spent 2 weeks on St Martin and while a lovely island it still has a long way to go with recovery after Irma in 2017.

The Dutch side fared better than the French side or maybe because the airport and cruise ship port are both on that side of the island they got it together quicker? Either way there's still a lot of work to be done on both sides.

Marigot is a sad version of what it once was. Few shops are open, the market is a portion of it's previous size but there are restaurants open and you can climb up to Fort St Louis for a lovely view of the harbor and Anguilla just across the water.

We stayed on the French side at Nettle Bay Beach Club which is about 70% rebuilt/renovated. There are few units that are completely abandoned with little hint of anything further being done. Many are beautifully rehabbed.

The beach is lovely however you do need shoes to walk around as there is still glass and debris from the storm and renovations that are all over.

It must have been cheap dock your mega-yacht week around Christmas as we counted at least 7 in our small bay and dozens more in Simpson Lagoon near the airport.  Then there were the private jets. One after another they came in past Maho Bay Beach where you can watch all the tourons get blown off their feet and blasted by sand for fun. Clearly this island is for the wealthy.

On the plus side, the food is spectacular! We had wonderful meals out and were able to get anything we wanted to cook to eat in. The prices are not hideous as compared to many other islands and are no more expensive that Paris.

We dove with Ocean Explorers and had a great experience with them. Our divers did 2 shark dives and saw all kinds of sea life!

The French side is way more laid back from the Dutch side. It is quiet for the most part and it was easy to be relaxed.  The Dutch side has the casinos, bars and clubs as well as numerous hotels and resorts. It's clearly the party side of the island.

While we had a great trip and totally relaxed and St Martin/St Maarten checked all our boxes, it will be a while before we think about returning.

Azores - go before everyone finds out!

We recently spent 12 days in The Azores or Sao Miguel to be precise. There are 9 islands and this is the one that is easiest to get to now that their government allows Delta to fly from JFK daily from May to October. It's a little over 4 hours from NYC and (currently) a reasonable airfare if you consider it is A) Europe and B) Summer.  We scored tixs for about $800/pp in AUGUST.

The Azores are a unique place. They are volcanic, have a tea plantation, grow the best pineapples you will ever eat, largely self-sufficient when it comes to food.

You can go hiking all over the island if you're that type of person.

You can go swimming in an ocean filled pool, scuba diving, sailing and whale watching (which we suck at because we never see whales) if your that type of person.

You can go to the botanical garden, historic and still active military fort/museum, or have a personal tour of the farmer's market and cooking class on what you've bought.

A really cool and unique thing to do is have dinner cooked by volcano. Furnas is the part of the island that still has volcanic activity. There is a park where restaurants take their pots in the early morning, let them cook all day and then serve dinner at their place in town. We were lucky enough to be there when they pulled one out of the ground. It's like Mother Nature's Crock Pot.

There aren't a lot of hotels so check out Airbnb for great deals. We scored a 3 bedroom flat with a view of the harbor and a parking spot in the building right on the main drag for about $239/night. We were walking distance to everything in Ponta Delgado.

Car rental was pricey but necessary if you want to see the island. Parking in town can be a challenge but is manageable. Driving is easy and as the roads that go around the island are winding so you don't go much over 30 mph. There are roads the cut across that move faster as does the highway. But take the scenic routes to really get a feel for this island. Just know that cows are really a source of traffic.

You can take 4 full days and do the highlights or a week to 10 days gets you a really in-depth view of these islands in the middle of the Atlantic.

Bonus: No regular cruise ships stop here unless they are on transatlantic from the US to Europe for the change of season. So you will not have days where the town is flooded with people!

The one thing you can't really do is shop. If you're a shopper looking for duty-free or lots of shops selling local wares, this is not the island for you, find somewhere else for that!