Passports

Renewing a passport while you are in a foreign country is like playing roulette. You never know if it's going to work, when it will be returned, or how to do it. Surrendering your passport means you are stranded in a foreign country until you get your new passport. You take your chances and hope for the best.

First stop is the American Consulate in Curacao.  The Dutch Caribbean isn't important enough to have a full embassy (which is located in the Netherlands) so you deal with a Consulate on another island. The Consulate only comes to Bonaire twice a year to conduct business and they require a scheduled appointment to turn in all your paper work.

The consulate is not available by phone. All correspondence is done via email.  I send emails and the consulate sends standard form responses back and refers me to the website. If you have questions not covered in the form emails you have to send an emails with a subject line of: REQEST FOR SPECIFIC INFORMATION.  In return you get a one word response to your request. Their customer service to American citizens is unbelievably bad.  How busy can they be when there are only about 1,500 Americans on the islands they serve?

The consulate requires that the renewal fee be paid with a cashiers check. The banks on Bonaire do not issue cashiers checks.  We have to get the checks from the States. They have to be addressed specifically to the consulate disbursing office.  Our first attempt worked well as our visiting family hand carried the checks to us.  Then we noticed that they were incorrectly addressed.  We enlisted the help of some visiting friends from Georgia to get new cashier checks and bring them to us when they come for vacation. Crisis averted.

Our appointment is in May at which time we get to pay an additional $50 each for the Consulate representative to verify our signatures.  They will take this amount in cash...probably use the cash for cocktails at the airport.

I often complain about the crazy Dutch Government processes.  Just to be clear, the American Consulate processes are just as crazy and difficult to follow. Governments are the same the world around.

Foraging

Each barrio on Bonaire has their own bakery, meat store, fish monger, snack bars, restaurants and various grocery stores.  These are hidden away in residential areas. There are none in Belnem where we live.  Our area is newer and much less of a community and has little cultural appeal. 

Someone has to tell you about these food vendors or you would never know about them. A long time resident of Bonaire told us about the "Chicken Lady" at Latino Grill.  We went with our guide to go foraging for good food,  After wandering around a bit we started smelling the smoked meats and followed our nose to the right place. Every Saturday by 10:30 am a line begins to form at the Latino Grill for rotisserie chicken, smoked ribs, and fresh bread.

The Chicken Lady is also serves pumpkin or banana pancakes for  $1.00 each. We ordered a couple of those to go with our chicken order.

Next on our discovery voyage, was Zarpin, a fish monger on the island.  We have heard about this little place in a blue house where you could get fresh fish everyday around 3:00 pm.  We could never find it and now we know where it is...right around the corner from the Chicken Lady.

 

Parties

The sunsets are a big deal on the island.  Many times you will see tourists gather at the main beaches for the event and some even clap when the sun goes down.  We have been known to take adult beverages to the beach and watch the sunset as well as the kite surfers at Atlantis beach. The sun sets are an event.

Lately, we have been invited to several events on the beach. Gatherings on the island are unique.  We usually gather at sunset for dinner and drinks. What we find interesting is that you provide your own drinks, plates and silverware, bring your own chairs and we often take our own insulated cups.  The host often provides the main dish and everyone brings side dishes. 

This weekend, our two young neighbors (they are still working) hosted a burger party.  They have been perfecting their burgers by testing different meat mixtures and cooking techniques.  They set up on the beach and cooked burgers for 30 + people. He is an ex-chef (now works in finance) and he made the best burgers ever! He even wrapped them in paper for easy eating. I think eating burgers on the beach is what makes them taste so good.

After sunset, we sat in groups around Tikki torches or mosquito burn pots and enjoyed the good company and fine weather. It just doesn't get any better than this.

 

Plumbing

When we bought the house it came with a brand new studio apartment that had never been used.  We are now finding out that several things didn't work.  We have had to order a new stove top because the original one had a cord that was put together with electrical tape and never could get it to work. We have also had the air conditioning rewired so that it was safe and operable from inside the apartment. Now it's plumbing.

We have had several guests use the shower in the apartment. None of them ever mentioned that there was no hot water in the shower. The fixture is European and has lots of knobs and buttons for operation.  We just chalked it up to not knowing how to work the fixture. It seemed like it was just an "operator error" issue.  

Nevertheless, we called the plumber.  He figured out that the fixture had an internal problem.  He replaced the fixture. We now have hot water in the shower. 

Our second issue, has been going on for two years. Okay, before you get all "why didn't we fix it earlier" on us....we weren't really sure how Dutch toilets are supposed to work.  I know it's a weak excuse but it's all I got.

All the toilet mechanical stuff is hidden behind a tiled wall in the master bathroom.  The flush pad hides the hole.  The plumber reaches his hand into the black hole and pulls out pieces and parts as he looks for the issue (the issue is it wouldn't refill very fast). He quickly found that the water refill pipe was blocked.  He dug out some caulk from a couple pieces, gave it a blow (his mouth on the pipe fixture), and solved the problem.

 

Second Time Around

We purchased another used car on the island. This time it was so much easier because we sort-of knew what we were doing.

I found this car on a Facebook site (Bonaire Car 4 Sale).  It  was a newer model and had lower mileage than our current island car. 

We met a man at literally a wide spot in the road and he showed us the car.  He was with Douane (customs on Bonaire).  We liked the car and wanted to know if he could prove ownership.  He said he didn't own the car and was showing it for the owner.  We were suspicious about buying a car through a private party and this statement made us even more unsure about how to prove ownership.

We said we would buy the car if ownership could be proven.  The Douane Agent calls the owner, puts us on speaker phone and we ask for proof of ownership. The owner just happens to be the head of the legal department for the OLB (the island government).  Our fears subsided as she sent us all the documents we needed and then some.  As a lawyer, she prepared a Bill of Sales that looked like a serious legal document.

We purchased the car on the Friday before Easter weekend.  On Bonaire, everything closes down on Good Friday and stays closed through "Easter Monday". On Tuesday we got insurance, paid the insurance in person at the Ennia office, paid the road tax at the Post Office as well as the $8.70 for the plates, and proceeded to the license plate office. We completed licensing in 2 hours! 

The first time, we tried to license our first car it took us 5 days. This time we had very low expectations of getting the license in less than a few days.  We also had a bank account on the island which sped up the payment process.  We had Crib numbers (tax id) and our Sedulas (resident cards). We also knew where all the places were that you had to go to get the process completed.

We are now experienced islanders and the second time around seems way easier.

 
 

Easter

Easter morning we were up at 4:30 am to take the visiting family to the airport after their 2 week stay on the island.  We returned home and jumped back in bed for a couple of hours.  

Our good friends had made reservations for Easter Brunch for all of us months ago at the Hang Out Beach Bar.  There is nothing like eating and drinking at a beach bar. It's dinner with a show.

This was our view of Lac Bay at Sorobon.  It was a gorgeous day.  We watched the wind surfers while we ate brunch served with endless Prosecco. 

Rick was admiring the swimsuit wearers   There was a lot of  "T and A" hanging out.

By 2:30 pm we were back in bed sleeping off the Prosecco and over indulging food consumption.  We slept for the next 12 hours resting up from the visitors and Easter.

Rick was busy so I took a selfie with Brenda.

Happy Easter.

Oh To Be 5 Again

There is nothing like a 5 year old's enthusiasm, energy and general joy of life. We had the pleasure to share the last two weeks with our grandson as he and his family visited Bonaire. He finds joy in everything he does, eats or experiences. I wish I could be 5 again.

He has become a master snorkeler. We started in the pool. His first try at snorkeling in the ocean was met with fear of not being able to touch the bottom. Next we took a noodle and introduced him to snorkeling in the ocean. He took to it like a fish.  He has snorkeled some of the toughest conditions Bonaire has to offer.  He has overcome big waves, strong current and ocean swells. What a champ!

 

He ate with gusto. He tried arepas, tacos, chicken (made everyway you could imagine), eggs and croissants, froutloops cereal, fish, sandwiches, and the biggest breakfast in the world: waffle with Nutella and powdered sugar and a mound of fruit. Of course he had hot chocolate to go with it.

He loves the water and played nonstop in the pool. He was mesmerized
by the sea life.  He got to see turtles, squids, eels, dolphins, lizard and needle fish... and was equally thrilled with each. He kayaked through the mangroves with delight and loved seeing all the trees and wildlife.