Kralendijk – Today we booked an excursion (through the ship) to float through the mangroves on the western part of the island. We were picked up at 10:30 right by the pier. Yesterday we had an open air bus. Today, I’m not sure what we had. It was an open air truck with benches in the back. There were ladders you had to climb to get into the truck. Once we were all loaded up, they had to attach the trailer with the little rubber electric boat that we would use to navigate the mangroves.
It was 45ish minutes away on the other side of the island. Yesterday Eddie on Irie Tours talked about how bad their roads were but that there simply wasn’t any money to fix them. Oh. My. Goodness. After about 15 min driving on real roads, our driver turned off onto a dirt road. This road that took us to the mangroves was filled with so many potholes there was nowhere to drive without going through them. Our driver did the best he could but it was like riding a roller coaster, or a broncking bull. Thankfully we made a stop at the flamingo spot. There were flamingoes everywhere (there are over 10,000)! So cool.
Eventually we made it to our destination all in one piece. After checking to make sure all of our body parts were still attached and using the restroom, we hopped into an inflatable electric boat to go through the mangroves.
The mangroves have a pretty neat history and Joey was there to tell us all about it. How to tell the difference between the white, black and red mangroves. How they propagate and their story. The mangroves hold dozens of different fish and turtles and are rich with all kinds of sea life – we saw a turtle but not much else. While the mangroves take up a large area, you can only tour a very small portion of it. The tour was interesting and relaxing and full of information. Our guide was wonderful and full of knowledge even though he is still learning himself. It was a good tour but not something we need to repeat.
The drive back to the ship? Not so much. The dirt roads. The potholes. The whole bucking bronco thing. And as if THAT wasn’t bad enough, here comes a dump truck barreling down on us and before we knew what was happening he passed us. This happened a few more times and the dust it kicked up was not for the faint of heart. I was breathing through a towel. Crazy ass people.
Our drive to the mangroves was quite long – well, long in time, not necessarily in miles. The island really isn’t that big. But a lot of the roads (and I use that word loosely) were mainly potholes so we crawled much of the time. Anyway, that left more time for conversation (when you could actually speak and hear each other over the clinging and clanking of the truck and trailer bouncing over all the potholes) with others sitting nearby. Clue in Steve and Christina from Spokane. Actually we met and started talking to them while waiting to board the truck for the excursion. Such a great couple to talk with. Steve is a retired law enforcement officer of 24 years (I think) and boy does he have some stories to tell. They tried to book a similar excursion (through the ship) and was denied because Steve is over 75. We couldn’t believe it. The guy looks amazing. His attitude and love for life shines through in everything he says. We loved our time with them and will look forward to seeing them again on the ship.
By the time we got back to the ship we just wanted food and to get clean. We grabbed lunch at the buffet – even though it was now 2:00 and we had dinner reservations at 6:00. Went back to the room and took a nap. We both died.
Amazingly we got up and got ready for dinner. We sat next to the loveliest couple at dinner. Ray and Sharon (I think). He is a retired firefighter and they travel all the time and have basically been all over the world. There aren’t many places they haven’t been at least once. They’re in their upper 70’s and still kickin it! We had some lovely conversation with them,
Stopped by Al Bacio for a tea and came back to the room. Time to pack for tomorrow’s excursion and do this journaling. 🙂
It's a Wonderful Life! 