Bonaire

A Lesson In Murphy's Law
Mark and I enjoyed our trip for the most part, but it was a little bumpy all-in-all. Mark had been anxiously waiting for this scuba trip for over a year now, and he got it for such a good price! The package included food discounts, scuba diving, resort, airfare, car rental, and pretty much anything. I was pretty excited myself. I mean, I was a little nervous (NOT going to lie) but ya know, it's Bonaire! When in the world am I ever going to go to Bonaire? So, we get all ready and we think we are all set to go on June 28th just like the ticket/itinerary said..... there was a catch..... the itinerary said June 27th.... at 11:57 p.m. and the ticket said June 28th at 12:04 a.m. or something along those lines. You get the idea. Anyways, so we got the times and dates a little mixed up.... and we thought we would go at 12:00 p.m. on June 28th. OOPS! We missed our flight! Well... we were pretty darn lucky to find another flight into Bonaire the same week. There are only one or two flights a week.

So instead of paying around $3,800 total for our trip we had to pay additional expenses for a one way tickets for the two of us. Great! So that took us to $5,900. Now, this takes us to the wonderful topic of our flight.....

Dallas, Texas

The layover in Texas.... Let me tell you a little something about layovers over 12 hours.... The airlines don't let you stay in the airport. So they force you to stay in a hotel or on the street outside of the airport, or on a very uncomfortable cot. Luckily, we got to stay in a hotel... (because I was not about to stay awake and keep watch of my luggage for 13-14 hours~!) Seriously.... give me a break. So for a discounted price we went to a hotel. It was $50. Not bad...... There were huge ants on the floor though...... not my favorite... they freaked me out.... at least I had a bed to sleep on....

This airport had really cool stuff inside though... Probably my favorite aiport so far. They had tons of food... too much BBQ, but they had THE MOST COMFORTABLE SEATS IN THE WAITING TERMINALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is a maze thing in the middle of the airport. I dont really know why it was there.... maybe to keep people like me and Mark occupied.

Puerto Rico

Three words: THEIR FOOD SUCKS!

The bread on that thing really did feel like I was biting into foam.

Finally Bonaire

Bonaire- When we got there, we wanted to go on a night dive, so we got ready and we realized we didn't have any weights! Kerstin told us we had to go to the dive shop in the morning to get our weights. So we didnt dive that night. Ha ha instead.... that night we got to know the mosqitos of Bonaire. This photo was taken at around 3:00 a.m.

Over the entire trip I was bitten 46 times. Cool eh? I didnt really think so... but if you think so... good for you. I officially cut you off FOR LIFE.

In the morning, we got up extra early so we could get as many dives in to not waste any more time than we had already wasted.... So we went and they decided that they didnt have enough people for the video so they postponed the orientation for 2:00 p.m. So no diving until after that.... Wow... No comment. 2:00 came around and there was ONE more person. WOW ONE MORE! Okay, so after they left the room, we figured out it was a promo gimmic to buy stuff in the shop, we fast forwarded the video some so we could get our stupid weights. For crying out loud! We didn't fly all the way to Bonaire to buy ugly hand painted rocks! My lands people!

After an hour of that nonsense we finally get ready and go diving. We didnt see very much other than some eels and some fish. Mark went night diving with Scott and didn't see very much at all.

Wednesday we went on a Boat dive and I threw up in my regulator. Mark was about ten feet away from me and we were going down and all of a sudden I started to cough like crazy. I felt dizzy and nauseated and I just threw up. I had to keep breathing because I didnt want my lungs to explode so I blew the throw up that was in my sinuses out of my nose while I was flushing it out of my regulator. Then I would breathe and keep doing the same thing until it was cleaned out. I was so dizzy down there. We probably should have surfaced, but we didnt. I lost so much air doing that. I washed my regulator out like crazy when we got to our condo. So much for breakfast.

My eye was still pretty swollen too. Wow, vomit and impaired vision.



Oh all your meals there you have birds all around you, there are gulls and pigeons.



This gull was eyeing my food. If you leave your table for one second, the gulls will come and eat all your food.

Oh- Ha ha I cant forget to mention this waiter! When we see you all next, Mark will have to reenact how this poor guy talked! I really think he had the hardest puberty ever. Seriously though, when Mark does it you will pee your britches! I cant do it as well as he does. The first time he came up to us I about died. I was trying not to smile. But it took me so off guard. I had never heard anything like it in my life! His voice cracks like there is not tomorrow. It was like a 20 year old was stuck in a 13 year olds body. But the voice cracking was to an extreme. Sad story. I feel for him I tell ya......

And anytime you ask not to get capers, you get no onions, you ask for apple pie, you get a giant blob of something that is not apple pie, you ask for creme brulee, you get a piping hot blob of creme with hot jam on top. At least the steak, tuna and grouper was good.

Mark's Steak....



MY STEAK..... Now THAT is what I am talking about!

Sorry I look A little lumpy- it's literally all the mosqito bites. They went for my face.

Thursday, we wasted most of our day trying to figure out if we were going to come home or not. We tried to see if we could use the front desk's phone to call Delta, but they said, "NO WAY JOSE" and said we had to use our room's phone which would have cost us $2.50 to dial out and then $2 for each minute. RETARDED. Then we tried to use our phones, but they wouldnt work. Then Josh had "Skype" which is pretty much a phone on the internet that is 70 cents a minute. Hallelujah! So we emailed out travel agent and they said they tried absolutely everything and we had to buy another ticket home. We thought it was the end of the world. Mark said (and I quote) "This is the trip from HELL!" Ha ha I agreed. Then we called Delta to see if there was ANYTHING else we could do, and there was..... STUPID travel piece of junk. Didnt know what they were talking about. We only had to pay $15 per person to re-ticket. We were so relieved. Things were starting to turn around!

So half of our day was eaten up. From then on we decided we were going to go on some shore dives and just try to enjoy what time we had left. So we went to the other side of the island. OH MY LANTA! I have never seen such beauty! Kerstin said something about how she didnt know how Atheists could scuba dive and not believe in God. Well, I totally agree. There is a God I tell you. I am not going to bear my testimony right now because I have too many other things to say right now.... maybe later.... but THERE IS A GOD.... BELIEVE ME.

Okay, I will hurry now, because this blog is GINORMA! BAGANGA!

When we were touring the island on the last 24 hours, we stopped at this VooDoo lady's house. We thought it was this art shop. Guess again people! We go in and she is sitting on her porch painting something. Her door was open so we could see in her home. At the time we didnt know it was her home and so Kerstin asks, "Is it inside too?" and she says, "No, that is my home." I looked inside, and I noticed her living room and dining room. In her dining room she had life sized dummies (all different and unique in their own way) all around the table except one chair, which I am assuming was her spot. Then in her living room, she had a tea set, and there was a spot, for her, (I am assuming) and they all are positioned to be social. Maybe she is lonely.... so I thought. But the placed smelled funny, like she was burning something really weird. No comment. She said, "Welcome to Yanny's Garden." Okay? Thanks?.... The cool part was that she had live flammingo's and turtles and tortoises, and hermit crabs in a cage (who cages their crabs?) Also, she had nativity scenes everywhere and this one had baby Jesus with a halloween mask on like he was satanic. I didnt take a picture because I was partially offended and I didnt know if it was sacreligious. Oh well. But anyways, she had bones hanging everywhere, and it was just creepy, and after we all had this really bad feeling and wanted to leave, so we left pronto.

We know one thing is for dang sure- she can't spell.



Here are some flammingo's in her yard.

And here is an idea of what the inside and outside people look like. CREEPY.

We went to the salt mines, slave huts (tiny, they look like little dog houses). Makes you think how fortunate you really are.

This is the doorway to get into the slave hut. That is how small these things are!

Here is some scenery...

The sea urchin we saved.



Here is some VooDoo from one side of the island. It is literally all over this one side of the island. Maybe that one lady owns it......

And anyways, the trip was very unique. We had a "different kind of fun. At least we were together and we didnt rip each other's heads off. Right?

This is Mark now. I just have to add that on our way home just before takeoff the power on the plane went down twice. The pilot told us that it was the AC unit overloading the power, that it had been repaired, and the plane was in perfect working order. Still not very comforting just before starting a 5 hour flight over the ocean. Then, in Atlanta, Delta put the wrong plane up to the terminal! They didn't notice till they had started boarding. They had to unboard the plane and got all the passenger seating mixed up on reboarding.