I had another adventurous morning to myself and decided to walk into town to check out the local flea market. Town was bustling as two cruise ships had docked this morning. People from all over the world were crowding the streets downtown looking for a good deal on trinkets and other things from this charming little island. Me? I was in search of ice cream as it was a hot walk (about 2 miles, 30 minutes walking quickly in the direct sun) :)
About 3/4 of the way into my walk I decided that maybe I needed a drink more immediately than ice cream. I stopped by a local food cart and had a delicious fresh mango smoothie (no milk please) and a bottle of water. The ladies working the cart were lovely so I stayed to chat for a bit. They laughed when I said that it was hot out today, stating that I should NOT come back anytime between June-September as even then the locals are not out walking anywhere (since this is a small island, it's not uncommon for people to walk everywhere they need to go). Aparently temps get up around 37 celcius then! My pale skins burns just thinking about it.
After I polished off my smoothie, I kept on walking along the coast, admiring all the new sailboats that had arrived since yesterday (I'm really thinking we need one of those). I browsed through several shops and finally entered the market where I found everything from fresh fruit (shipped in from Venezuela this morning), to carved drift wood, to jewelry, to a booth to support the local no-kill animal shelter.... This animal shelter is quite impressive as it provides a great deal of free education, free spay/neuter, and microchipping. In the three years that I've been coming to Bonaire, there has been a visible difference in the animal population (cats and dogs) roaming the island. My first visit to Bonaire included a couple of tearful nights after seeing emaciated, thirsty, mangy, and ill animals wandering the streets (it didn't help that one of them looked like my beloved childhood dog, Bandit), and noticing a disregard for them from those that live here. The second trip, I didn't see nearly as many loose dogs and cats, and the ones I did see looked pretty good. And now! I see well fed, well cared for animals, that wear collars and have flea protection. Sure they still roam, but you can see a difference in the cultural thinking about animals.
Enough rambling here. After a quick donation to the shelter and no further purchases (very disappointing), I found my beloved Lover's ice cream shop. One scoop of chocolate and one scoot of the best peanutbutter ice cream I've ever had. A great way to cool a girl down for her long walk back.
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