Bonaire might be known as an amazing place to scuba dive but you might not know that there
are so many other amazing things to do on this island when you're not diving coming up
and if you're new here yell I'm Christine Lozada with where in the world is CL and I make travel
videos every week till if you get up get out and go travel so if you like to travel consider
subscribing there are so many fun things to do on this island I'm super excited to
share with you some of these amazing things so let's dive straight in with the first one
foreign s you'll notice really fast once you get to Bonaire is there's a lot of
donkeys everywhere on the island and you know I've been here before and I've always
wondered like why are there so many donkeys visiting the Donkey Sanctuary is a must for
learning more and also getting some pretty up-close fun interaction with these donkeys
so I was really excited to come here to learn more about them let's talk about it
if you've ever been curious about why Bonaire has donkeys let me tell you one thing that's
interesting is these donkeys will hold on let's let's talk about this first they're
not natural to the island they were brought by the Spaniards in the 17th century to help with right
the hard labor the working the land and there are around 1100 donkeys on the island this is
not a big island so that's a lot of donkeys but I mean obviously now they're not needed for this
type of work anymore so they're just here and one thing that is that is sad is that they are
often dying of starvation of dehydration of other things other things like it's very common to see
tourists opening their car windows right off the main road and feeding the donkeys and what this
does is it trains them to approach the cars and when they come into the roads a lot a lot of times
they get hit by cars and so when the donkeys are hurt or when they're sick or when they're whatever
might be they take them in to the Donkey Sanctuary to care for them until they're ready to go back
out to the wild again so the sanctuary is here and it's honestly just a lot of volunteers and
they try to fundraise by doing a couple things one you can visit they're open seven days a week from
ten to five every day just show up show up and you can meet with the different volunteers learn
about the donkeys have some up close interactions maybe you'll be lucky like I was and one was just
born and so you'll see a baby donkey and then you have the option to drive through there and it's a
lot of Acres it's a huge huge property and you can drive around I went over to the Observation
Center and you can just see the entire space and support them for just nine dollars a person the
other thing you can do similar to if you saw any of my videos in the Maldives links in the
description below if you missed that but in the same way a on that trip you can adopt a
manta ray here you can adopt a donkey so check the info in the description below to learn more
about that because you have the ability to really help the Donkey Sanctuary to help more donkeys
let's head over to lock Bay because there are several things to do here it's the best diving
on the island in my opinion check the video in the description below to learn more about
my guys Fred and Sid at East Coast Diving but aside from diving we've got options to
chill at the beach bar grab a gourmet lunch at Sebastian's Beach location or some Adventure
windsurfing but let's start with something that's easily accessible and anyone can do
if you want to see and experience Bonaire in a totally different way instead of
snorkeling and scuba diving on the reef try snorkeling and kayaking in the mangroves
kayaking in the mangroves is something I do a lot especially in Florida but this was my first
time snorkeling in the mangroves and Bonaire is the place to do this let me tell you why
there's actually a lot to see here and like all mangroves it's protecting the baby fish in
the area so you see a lot of fish juvenile fish baby fish all hiding in the mangroves here it's
really pretty how the light is coming through the trees and hitting the water it just gives
a completely different kind of view than what you'll see snorkeling out on the reef and one
thing you'll expect to see a lot you've got to be careful not to step on them is the upside
down jellyfish and they're upside down because they're eating the algae and they won't hurt you
their sting isn't as bad as the jellyfish that are out in the open ocean because they're not
Predators since they're just eating the algae they still have a sting but it's not nearly as
bad but watch out for them make sure you don't step on them this tour was really awesome it
was about three hours long and there's various ways you can do the kayaking tour so make sure
you check the info in the description below but on the tour I learned a lot about the importance of
the mangroves protecting Bonaire both providing a lot of oxygen to the area I don't know if you
know this but mangroves create three times more oxygen than rainforests do and it's protecting
the reef and what's unique about this is instead of hanging out on the south and the West part of
the island where most people are at you're heading over to the east side of the island so afterwards
you might consider doing this next activity which is heading over to job City to windsurf
by the way if you're getting some value out of this video cheers that like button consider
subscribing and tell me in the comments below if there are other things you're considering
doing so that we can help each other as a community and come up with more ideas
because I'm returning to this island and there is way more to do than I anticipated but let's
move on to the next one windsurfing is something I've always wanted to try and I'm so excited to
share this one with you because Bonaire is the perfect place to learn one of the top
misperceptions is that you need tons and tons of wind to learn to windsurf and I'm actually
really thankful that I came early in the morning when they opened at 9am I headed over to the east
side of the island to Jive City where Jamal and Caesar welcomed me and gave me a lesson
and what's interesting is in Bonaire the wind picks up as the day goes on so in the morning
I had really steady slow-ish maybe 10 mile per hour winds which made it so much easier for me
to learn because even though I started at 9am I was out there until 11 a.m and the wind started
picking up and when the wind picks up it's not necessarily consistent it would gust and
blow and when it does that it's like on the windsurf so it gets hard to stay upright and
steady versus when the wind is slower and even so if you're considering this I definitely recommend
the morning but Cesar made it so easy for me and so much fun to learn how to windsurf oh foreign
ique about Bonaire and Loch Bay where you learn to windsurf is there are places I've traveled to
for example Zanzibar where the tide goes way way out and wait wait it's extreme Tides here it's
very even all the time and what's interesting is literally as far as I can see okay just really far
it remains waist high deep of water and there's no unlike Zanzibar there's sea urchins everywhere
that you can step on and rocks everywhere you can step on in Bonaire the water is not only shallow
so if you fall off your board it's very easy to get back on your board or if you can't figure out
how to get back like me sometimes you can just walk your board back and you don't have to be
afraid of sea urchins and rocks Etc it's mostly just sand and you can see clearer to the bottom
which also means while you're or windsurfing it is beautiful and so I highly recommend Bonaire
as being the place to learn how to windsurf because of these conditions it just it makes it
too beautiful too fun and too easy plus my friends at chive City make it a ton of fun to learn how
to do it and after you're done learning you should consider staying a while because the beach bar has
tons of food and tons of drinks and a really great view to chill hang out and enjoy your afternoon
this next one is so fun and super unique and anyone can do it if you love go-karts
this is going to take your experience to a totally new level because instead of using
gas or electricity to power your cart now you're using the wind and I got to spend
the morning with Cesar windsurfing but now I'm spending my afternoon with his cousin
Lan sailing welcome to Bonaire land sailing adventures where you'll meet husband and wife
Andrew and Donna they're from New Zealand which is where this sport originated and
Andrew's actually a fierce competitor at it it's amazing to watch him ride around in these cards
if you're curious how the heck does it work basically while you're sitting in the cart
you're using a rope to tighten or loosen your sail and that will determine how fast you're
going so it's cool because if you if you feel like you're a little out of control or you're
feeling afraid you simply let go of the rope and your cart will will come to a slow and then a
stop but if you're feeling Fast and Furious then you can yank really hard and tighten
the rope and in good wind you can reach 30 to 40 kilometers per hour in speed and on stormy Gusty
days you can get up to 60 kilometers per hour so you can go pretty fast in these things oh
my God
okay what's cool is the TEAM stands on the track to help you out so if you're like me and you're
on The Struggle Bus and it's it's not intuitive to figure out how to take the turns around the
track so you know if you uh completely lose all wind and speed they will give you a little push
to help you out but it's super fun and super safe on the website you can learn more Link
in description below you can rent the track for 30 minutes to an hour at a time or do a private
rental of the entire track and it's really fun they have info about the wind conditions that
are coming up so you can determine how fast and furious you want to be but do not miss land saline
I'm looking the wrong way because it's it's right there oh neat oh I'm excited
this next one I'm super excited to share with you because it has made me appreciate the island of
Bonaire in a totally new and different way because I spend all day scuba diving and looking at the
coral but this time you have the opportunity to be inside of the coral it's so cool so hold
on all right let me back up let's talk about it oh it's so bright he really is that tall laughs
first you gotta meet Dirk Dirk is in my opinion the tallest caveman in the history of ever welcome
to the caves we're sweaty in here are you sweaty too no not at all this is also for for Giants and
for Dwarfs tell me in the comments below if you know anyone who does cave tours taller than Dirk
it's pretty amazing but he's been doing these cave tours for seven to eight years and he's super fun
super energetic and super passionate about it and he really tells you about the history of Bonaire
through these caves because in the sediment in the way that the caves are formed it tells you so
much about the history I thought and I'm gonna be totally honest here I thought Bonaire was formed
as a result of volcanic activity but that's not true it's the meeting of tectonic plates
and what's interesting is by these plates pushing together eventually when they came up high enough
in the water Coral was formed on top of them and so this entire Island the entire island is made of
coral which is really phenomenal and so on this tour we go on two different locations for caves
and hold on let me let me tell you something right now it's hot it's hot inside the caves but there's
a silver lining because in the second cave you get into some pretty cold water we'll talk about it
so let's talk about the first cave which is just a couple minutes walk off the main road and it's
interesting because you'd be like uh are we here like there's a cave here and all of a sudden
there's like this hole in the ground and this is what they call the ladder cave because there's
just a ladder a short regular sized ladder rather that brings you down into the cave and as you go
into the different rooms of the cave you learn about all the different stalagmites stalactites
stalagnates and so much more that tells you about the history of Bonaire when I'm talking history
I'm not talking about the last hundred years I'm talking over thousands and thousands and thousands
and lots of years and it's really neat to see it and there's also bats in the cave which here's an
example of something I now appreciate there's Cactus all over the island and the reason for
that is the bats are the ones that are pollinating the cactus and I didn't know that bats could fly
far there's not that many bats on this island in and so they actually are capable of flying
the 55 miles all the way over to Curacao to be able to mate with other bats I think that's so
cool this Island used to be filled with Brazil trees but they were cut down by the Spaniards
many many years ago and now it's tons of cactus uh yeah you will also aside from bats find some
cockroaches and it's pretty dark and quiet and creepy in the caves but it's really really fun
let's talk about cave number dose number two you are climbing down with ropes and this is not for
everybody you have to have some athletic ability to be able to do this but you are going down into
the cave via some ropes and then there's this entry pool area and like I was said before the
water is pretty cool so I'm literally going down this cave with just my mask and snorkel and then
you my camera are coming down there with me in a flashlight and this what they call the kiddie pool
is a small pool that leads to a larger one and inside sometimes you can see some fish
but generally you don't see anything at all you see more rocks more stalagmites stalactites but
you can if you look closely see some little shrimp that if you stay too still for too long they'll
come over and start cleaning uh cleaning the skin off of your body but there's a little tiny
shrimp inside of there but this is cool fresh water and you can swim down through the caves
and there there are options for that you can do a tour that allows for that for me I've done enough
of the cenotes in Tulum if you're curious what it looks like to scuba dive through spaces like
this make sure you check out the other video in the description below because it's pretty cool
to see what these caves look like underwater but on this one I just kept my snorkel on and like
I mentioned this is a great activity actually even if you're a diver because you know before
before you fly out you need a day off from diving and this is a really great one to check out and
appreciate what you're seeing on the scuba diving Side by being inside the coral on the cave side
let's Lounge on the beach and go snorkeling and this next one is Up For Debate because there are
so many options of where you can go in Bonaire many people go to the South to Pink Beach very
pretty and a lot of people also like to go to Klein Bonaire or little Bonaire which is an
island that's a short 25 minute water taxi from Bonaire if you have an experience you love going
here please share it in the comments below but I actually chose not to go because all of my friends
went and yeah it wasn't Superior to other places you can go on the island it's very remote there's
nothing on this island in other words no food no bathroom no amenities nothing but the snorkeling
and the reef here aren't necessarily superior to the rest of Bonaire so I actually would recommend
the place to go as being 1 000 steps I'll admit right away it means there's no sand in other words
you would be sitting on the coral on the beach but it's one of the most beautiful spots and
the reef isn't so deep that you you can actually see things when you're snorkeling and so this is
one of my favorite spots that I recommend for lounging and going to the beach and snorkeling
what about Beach Clubs where you can get a day bed have some drinks eat some food
listen to some live music and more join me in my restaurants video for more info
about some of the options on Bonaire there aren't tons but there definitely are options
foreign
are just the views it's a beautiful island and people love to cruise around whether you
rent a golf cart to go see the views or you rent a scooter and you cruise around or you
just rent a car or a truck and drive around as well but there are things to see whether
it's the slave Huts it's the salt Pier or it's the flamingos or the donkeys and goats
that are everywhere just driving around the island is really beautiful consider
checking out my other video my driving video so you can get a sense of what it's like and
then choose your adventure with what kind of vehicle you want to go exploring in
can you recognize where I'm at in this video I'm at the national park which to be honest
is kind of a trek to get to and I personally was wondering is it worth checking out full
info in the description below I put out a separate video about it but the short
answer there are some really beautiful sights to see up here I hope you had some fun with me
in today's video make sure you check the description there are so many more videos
about this island and let's go grab a bite to eat join me in the next video let's talk
about some of the restaurants that are here and I'll see you over there ciao