The Farmer's Wife Abroad {Part 3}

 I'm not going to tell ALL the Newark Airport stories, because you'd completely lose interest in my whole trip and abandon the Chronicles for the Pioneer Woman's blog. Someday, though, you need to hear the story of Luis the Mexican janitor and also of the mysterious setting up of a stage through out the night by many different characters, none of whom seemed to have any knowledge or connection with any of the others. And the complicated ordering/payment/pickup experience of ordering a simple, generic $12 breakfast sandwich at 5 a.m....modern convenience and technology gone TERRIBLY wrong.

It's astonishing, really, what stories one observes when there is no other entertainment at 3 a.m. in hell.  I mean, Newark.


After several gate changes throughout the night and early morning, we finally departed at sunrise....six people from Montana that looked like we'd just pulled in from a four day commute on a Greyhound bus. We boarded amidst a full cabin load of happy, excited, WELL RESTED AND FED scuba diver groups who were chattering and laughing with their cute little carry on luggage and clean tee shirts.  I wanted to hate them, but I didn't have the energy.

Fortunately, the illicit coffee had kicked in enough for me to realize that we were taking off near the Statue of Liberty!  There she was...right out my window! (At least, I THINK it was the Statue of Liberty.  I HOPE it was the Statue of Liberty, because then another life goal would have been met, along with having and using a passport.)

 Upon boarding the plane Doc, Jenny, David and Yulena went promptly to sleep. This is a terrible phone picture of about halfway through the 4 1/2 hour flight from Bonaire to Newark. It was pretty much how everyone (except the fresh scuba groups) made the flight.
Except me.  I couldn't sleep for anything.  I was flying over the ocean!  To a foreign island!  Where they promised me there would be flamingos!

I cried when we finally made the final descent and I saw Bonaire for the first time.

I made it to the island.

(In retrospect, I know it was weariness and relief, but at that moment it seemed quite sentimental...)

The Bonaire Flamingo Airport is no-frills.  

It's a good introduction to the island.

Bonaire itself is a no-frills place. Nothing fancy. No one has the opportunity or means to get too big for their britches here. 

We walked directly out of the airplane into the hazy, moist heat.  

Got ourselves down the stairs attached to the plane.

Began the longish march to the airport, wondering to ourselves whose bag would be the one sent to the Netherlands mistakenly, because one bag is ALWAYS lost. 

Guess what?
The Flamingo Airport really and truly is charmingly painted pink! (This picture is all tippy because I was trying to take a photo without impeding traffic while balancing an overloaded carry on and purse.)

 Even the tile walkway is pink!

"Bon bini na Bonaire" is the Papiamentu phrasing.  Papiamentu is a sort of Creole-y language that's really only heard on Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao.  It's a crazy corruption and integration of all the languages of all the nationalities who have "owned" the island through the years.  (The airport is a converted military building as it turns out.  They're currently building a NEW airport to accommodate the number of flights that are coming in, growing every year.)

The flamingo...right before I got the stamp in my passport book. (The stamp ALSO had a flamingo on it.  We were veritably wallowing in flamingos. It was glorious.)

All the bags made it!

Miraculous!

The Villa Lunt caretaker, Marc (who Ivan believes is distantly related to Luis the Mexican airport custodian) met us with rental cars and led us through Kralendijk to our home for the week.

(Marc is his own post.)

To be continued....