Bonaire Flamingos

What an interesting day we had!  We are visiting the Dutch island of Bonaire today, and we very much enjoyed visiting the delightful town center of Kralendijk with its charming Dutch Colonial architecture painted in vivid Caribbean colours. 

This afternoon, we took a 4 x 4 truck tour of the island, which showed us the dramatic landscape of the interior, with mile after mile of cactus, very flat, dry, and dusty.  Flamingos live and breed here, and it was such a thrill to see large flocks, as I'd only ever seen these birds in a zoo before. 

Bonaire is also home to a large sea salt industry, and it was absolutely fascinating to see huge, stark white mountains of salt piled on the edges of lagoons that appeared to be filled with bright pink water!  To make the whole scene even more dramatic, a big tropical storm was quickly headed our way, so the dark and ominous lighting made the salt piles look even more eye catching.  To top it all off, there was a beautiful rainbow arcing in the background.  Sadly, my camera decided not to cooperate shortly after I took the photograph of the flamingos, so I will have to rely solely on my memories of this extraordinary sight.  Hopefully after a battery charge, things will once again be happy in the wonderful world of Nikon.