TRIP TO BONAIRE AND CURACAO—NOT A CRUISE: Guest Post by Sara Kras

Grote Knip Beach, Curacao

With many thanks to my friend and fellow children's book writer Sara Kras, who is one of the most adventurous intrepid tourists I know! She has been to a number of islands in the Caribbean--Barbados, Bahamas, Grand Cayman, Bonaire and Curacao, but says "I still have a few more to check out." .Here is her report on her recent trip to the islands of Bonaire and Curacao.

Bonaire and Curacao are part of the Dutch Caribbean and are located about fifty miles from South America.  These islands are usually visited by cruise ships where thousands of cruisers disembark for the day to shop for cheap Chinese trinkets or go on crazy excursions promoted by the cruise ship, such as hiking through the desert terrain, or riding a Segway through the salt flats. 

            View of a cruise ship from one of the wild coast snorkeling sites on Bonaire

My opinion is that the only reason anyone would want to be on these islands would be to swim, snorkel, or dive in the warm, turquoise waters.  Anything else would be a complete waste of time.  And so that’s what I did, pretty much all day, every day.

The water in Bonaire and Curacao is the clearest water in the world because much of the sea floor is covered in coral.  For this reason, water shoes are needed to navigate entry into the gorgeous water. 

Renting a car or truck is a must.  Before arriving I arranged one for Bonaire with a highly rated but informal company.  It was so informal that returning the car was as easy as driving to the airport, parking in short term parking, putting the keys in the visor, and leaving it, no inspections or paperwork.

Our rental on Curacao was a bit more formal but not by much.  We were picked up by shuttle at the airport and taken to a large house where the minimal paperwork for the car rental took place.

Because snacks at the resorts could be pretty expensive, we shopped at a local Dutch grocery store found on both islands called Van Den Tweel.  It was fun to browse through the large selection of different types of cheeses and meats and to try unusual Dutch sweets and drinks.

Bonaire

Each island had different characteristics.  Bonaire’s population was much smaller--only 25,000 residents.  The island was unique in that you could drive the main road which circled the island and stop to snorkel at many different wild coastlines. 

 

Coin box at the Bonaire airport to help the Donkey Sanctuary

Donkey Mural at Bonaire Airport

Along the Bonaire main road, you might see wild donkeys.  Tourists know about them and bring food to feed them through their car windows.  To care for these wild donkeys, a donkey sanctuary has been established.  Tourists can visit the sanctuary and meet the donkeys. While in line at the airport, a box with a message in English and Dutch asks for coins to help the donkey sanctuary.

We also booked a snorkeling trip with a Dutch company called Seacow Bonaire.  They took us across the pass to Klein Bonaire also known as Little Bonaire.  The water off of this small uninhabited island was filled with healthy coral, large colorful fish, sea turtles, and barracuda. 

Slave huts on Bonaire

Near the salt pans of Bonaire are several small slave huts.  These were used to house slaves who worked on the salt pans during the mid-nineteenth century.

Bonaire is the more rustic of the two islands.  We stayed for three nights and then flew in a small prop plane with a local airline called Divi Divi to Curacao.  The flight took approximately twenty-five minutes.

Curacao

Because Curacao has a higher population (150,000), it was much more developed than Bonaire.  More resorts, more restaurants, better paved roads, and more beach facilities.  

 

Tugboat Beach viewed from our lounge chairs

The first thing I did once we got to our beach resort was to swim in the warm Caribbean Sea.  The next day, we meandered to a snorkeling and diving site called Tugboat Beach located on the southern tip.  It got its name because a tugboat had sunk many years ago close to the shore. 

The beach had lounge chairs under shaded netting.  There was even a place to rent an underwater propeller, which we did.  This device buzzed me around in the water without having to move my legs.  The water was crystal clear. Brightly colored fish were seen on the way to and at the Tugboat site.

At lunchtime, we headed over to Mambo Beach.  We ordered grouper and received a piece of fish each about one inch thick and six inches long.  It was amazing.

Grote Knip Beach, Curacao

The next morning, we drove to Grote Knip Beach located on the northern section of the island.  We were able to park right next to the entrance and walked down to the relatively uncrowded beautiful stretch of sand.  I swam out to the coral area where there were lots of fish.  After my swim, it began to rain heavily, so I got back in the water to wait out the storm.

 

Colorful Willemstad, a UNESCO Heritage Site

We left around lunchtime.  We were shocked to see that the parking lot had become a complete madhouse with buses and cars trying to find places to park. Happy to leave, we headed back to the middle of the island to Willemstad to see the colorful buildings and floating bridge which make up the UNESCO Heritage Site.

The cruise ships dock their boats close to this area of the island, so the shops are full of junkie items from China.  Even the old eighteenth century buildings have been invaded by these vendors. 

To connect the two land areas which make up Wilemstad, an amazing floating bridge was built in the nineteenth century across the water.  We walked across the bridge to eat on the historical side of town.  While near the water, we saw the floating bridge shut down by sounding an alarm bell and then it swung to one side of the waterway to allow huge tankers from Curacao’s deep water port to enter the open sea.

We have been to a few Caribbean Islands. Each has their own unique environment and culture.  Because of the clarity of the water and the historic areas, these two islands have become my favorites.

 

FINLAND IN WINTER: Searching for the Northern Lights, Guest Post by Ann Whitford Paul

Northern Lights, Finland, November 2024.

Many thanks to my friend and fellow children’s book writer Ann Whitford Paul for sharing with The Intrepid Tourist her trip to Finland last winter with her grandson. She writes:

This past Thanksgiving my teenage grandson, Tade, and I traveled to Finland in search of the Northern Lights.

Cabins at our hotel.

We spent the first five days at the Apukka Resort in Rovaniemi, and our second five days a three-and-a-half hour drive north at Wilderness Hotel Inari. Both overlooked a frozen lake and had individual cabins with huge windows to observe the Northern Lights.

Typical buffet meal.

Both served food cafeteria style, with enough choices to please the pickiest of eaters. They also had menus to order from.

Both furnished the snowsuits, boots, mittens and socks necessary to stay warm outside in below freezing temperatures. Packing was easy--all we had to bring was several layers to go under the snowsuits. Dress code is casual and because sweating is unheard of in the cold, we needed very little change of clothes. My advice is to pack light.

Outdoor night activity with snacks of sausage, cookies and hot drinks.

Apukka Resort was geared more to families with young children and offered such activities as a mini-hill for sledding and individual sleigh rides pulled by slow reindeer.

A walk on the hotel grounds.

Winter days in the Arctic Circle are short, with the sun rising around nine in the morning and setting around two-thirty in the afternoon. We spent our days walking around the hotel or into a nearby town. Other days I relaxed reading and Tade played computer games.

Owl at the Ranura Wildlife Park.

A highlight was a day trip to RanuraWildlife Park, where we wandered with snow falling and observed wolves, bears, and unique, gorgeous owls.

Souvenir earrings.

One day, the shuttlebus carried us to Rovaniemi (8 euros per person). The town was burned to the ground by the Nazis in WWII so there’s not much to see, but I’m into earrings and found these. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Santa Claus Village https://www.santaclausholidayvillage.fi/ which is exactly the tourist trap you’d expect. I fell in love with stuffed Christmas Gnomes, which I bought, but didn’t need; Tade bought gifts to take home to family, and we took our pictures at the line of the Artic Circle. The wait to see Santa was forty minutes, and thankfully of no interest to my grandson.

Tade in the icy water after his sauna.

Nighttime activities included, of course, a sauna in a private cabin by the frozen lake. Tade was the only one brave enough to dip into the freezing water. I was content to take his picture.

Dogsled dogs.

By far, the highlights of the trip were the nighttime activities in search of the Northern Lights and included a snow train (a coach on runners pulled by a snowmobile), a horse pulled sleigh ride, a dogsled ride, and a snowmobile ride.

Ann and Tade bundled up to see the Northern Lights.

Northern Lights are caused by solar windstorms and are rarely seen as in the sharp, clear pictures depicted on travel brochures. They appear more in a blurry green, gold and/or orange—sometimes flashing, sometimes a shooting display. We were warned before we left that we might not see any Northern Lights but were treated to the sight five times. Bundled up, shivering, toes freezing, and our breath puffing clouds, the sight is a memory to be treasured forever—well worth the long plane ride and the frigid weather. 

CALIFORNIA OR BUST: Celebrating the 14th Anniversary of The Intrepid Tourist

The Scheaffer family at the Continental Divide, Colorado, August 1958.

It was fourteen years ago, in April 2011, that I launched The Intrepid Tourist as a platform for my travel writing. Since then I have put up a new post once a week, usually on a Monday. At first, the posts were articles based on my own travel. Over the years the blog has expanded to include posts from family and friends and currently totals more than 700 posts, seen by more than a half a million readers. In honor of this fourteenth anniversary I am posting a chapter from my memoir, Settlement House Girl, about my family’s cross-country trip in 1958 from Minneapolis to California and back. It was the most exciting trip we had ever taken and whetted my appetite to see more of the world.

California or Bust

T

he summer that I am fourteen (1958), our family embarks on an ambitious five week camping trip, packing the six of us into our 1954 Chevrolet Belair sedan for the journey from Minneapolis to California and back.  While my father has a long summer vacation, we don’t have the money to afford expensive trips--staying in hotels and eating in restaurants. The solution is car camping--staying at public campgrounds and cooking our own food.  Prior to that summer my mother had resisted going camping, insisting that it is too much work and not a vacation. But in 1958, my brother Tom is eight and Peter nine and old enough to help out. Steve and I have learned camping skills at overnights and cookouts as campers at Camp Bovey.

We buy two tents, sleeping bags, a camp stove, kerosene lantern, and set of nesting kettles. To prepare for the trip, we practice setting up camp in the backyard, much to our neighbors’ amusement as they watch from the other side of the fence. We each have a role. Keeping time with a stopwatch, my father directs the action: unfolding and spreading out the tent, pounding the stakes, erecting the umbrella support poles, propping up the rain flap. By the end of July we have the routine down pat and are ready to go.

Never before have any of us seen mountains, deserts, or the ocean. We feel like ancient explorers ready to discover a new land. Leaving Minneapolis and the rolling farmland of southern Minnesota behind, we cross the South Dakota prairie (with an obligatory stop at Wall Drug for photos and souvenirs), to our first campsite in the Black Hills, where we marvel at the giant heads on Mount Rushmore and the herds of shaggy bison roaming the plains.

Our next stop is Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, pitching our tents in the thin Alpine air. We hike along the mountain trails and get caught in a sudden snowstorm, amazed to encounter snow in summer.  We spot plump pikas harvesting grass to sun dry before they store it in underground burrows for winter. We watch water ouzels forage at the bottom of icy streams fed by melting mountain snow. I sit on a rock and stick my bare toes in the rushing water, but they quickly turn numb--which makes me wonder how the birds stay warm.

Caroline and her brothers at Mesa Verde.

From Rocky Mountain National Park we drive across the Continental Divide to the town of Montrose in western Colorado for a family reunion with my cousins.  From there we go to Mesa Verde National Park, pitching our tent at the edge of the mesa and, like the ancient cliff dwellers, cook our food over an open fire. It is easy to imagine our campsite as a place where the Anasazi might have tilled the ground to plant corn and beans or hunted deer and wild turkeys with bows and arrows. As we gaze into the canyon below we see a complex of square buildings built into the cliff wall a thousand years ago. My brothers and I delight in scrambling up and down the ladders of the cliff dwellings and investigating the open rooms. Protected from wind and weather by the overhanging rocks, the basic structure has changed little over time.

Inside the museum I peer at fine baskets, intricately decorated pots, carved stone and bone tools and other artifacts, and wonder about the ancient Americans who made them and why around 1300 AD they abandoned their homes. In the museum shop, I buy a small painting of a dancing figure by Navajo artist Harrison Begay. Outside, on the patio, a Native American man is constructing an elaborate sand painting, pouring colored grains to make tiny figures and geometric designs. We leave before the “painting” is complete, knowing that it is temporary, meant for tourists to see the artist at work. I learn that according to Navajo tradition, such paintings are part of healing ceremonies, destroyed after the ceremony is over.  

From Mesa Verde we head to Southern California to visit our cousins in a Los Angeles suburb. Our car has no air conditioning, so we cross the desert at night. Stars sparkle overhead in the clear, dry air as we speed down the highway. I can't imagine that anything could possibly live in such a barren, alien land. We arrive at my cousins’ house long past midnight and pitch our tents in their backyard. 

In Southern California I have my first view of the ocean and of waves taller than I am. Although I have been to Lake Michigan, a body of water so big that one can’t see to the other side, the Pacific is almost incomprehensible in its vastness. In tide pools along the shore I discover sea urchins, tiny crabs, and bright red sea stars. When I venture into the water to swim, a wave catches me by surprise and knocks me over. I can taste the salt on my tongue.

At the Minnesota state line.

On our return trip to Minneapolis we take a more northern route, stopping at the Grand Canyon; Salt Lake City; and Yellowstone National Park. It is one thing to read about ancient rock formations, the Mormon Temple, boiling rock pools and giant geysers, and another to see them in real life. This trip gives us all a taste of the infinite variety of our world and whets my appetite to see more of it.

Arriving home in Minneapolis.

SETTLEMENT HOUSE GIRL: Growing Up in the 1950s at North East Neighborhood House, Minnepolis, Minnesota is available at Amazon (paperback or ebook) or to order at your favorite bookstore. ISBN 9798864903285

GUATEMALA, CELEBRATING LENT IN THE HISTORIC FORMER CAPITAL: Guest Post by Tom Scheaffer

Antigua, Guatamala. Former colonial capital.

My brother Tom Scheaffer loves to travel and has recently returned from a trip to Guatemala. I thank him for sharing his excellent pictures and impressions of his trip.

Antigua, Guatemala, a colonial city going back to the early 1500s was once the capital of Guatemala. Now it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Situated at the base of a volcano, it is famous for its celebrations of Semana Santa (Holy Week), the last week of Lent and the week before Easter. My brother Tom was there at the beginning of Lent. On the first Sunday of Lent processions of people carrying huge shrines march around the city on streets carpeted with colorful floral designs. Crowds of people dressed in purple line the streets to watch. It is an impressive sight.

Here are a few photos taken by Tom during his visit:

Painting the carpet.

Tom writes, "They are painting these huge carpets with flowers and other things on the street because today is Cuaresma, the first Sunday of Lent. There is a huge procession with people carrying huge shrines through the streets." (Cuaresma is the Spanish word for Lent, the forty days before Easter. It comes from the Spanish word for forty--cuarenta.)

Cobblestone streets and colorful buildings are typical. (Paint colors are restricted to a few choices.)

St. Catalina Arch. Volcanos tower over the Antigua. Some of them are active.

Waiting in front of the historic Church of San Pedro for the Cuaresma procession to arrive.

Enormous shrine carried through the streets by teams of young men dressed in purple.

Antigua, Guatemala. High altitude (5029 feet) promotes a mild climate.

For more information about visiting Antigua, Guatemala go to this website.