Money Play and The Easter Roady

How cool is this Cuban flavoured bar?!

Show me the money!
Rolled out of bed 6.30ish this morning, being woken earlier to the familiar sound of pitter patter feet across the deck above us, followed soon after by the tinkle on the ground below. Silence and no return.
Conversations could be heard from Lelle's office, down at the workshop. I eventually caught up with Eden, dressed in his "work clothes," getting Lelle to organize his work!
Last week Lelle had given Eden some pants handed down from Luca. The hard-wearing pants were a gift from the Sweedish grandmother with special pockets on the outside that you can put tools and nails in.
Eden was so stoked with his new pants, they seemed to have given him a new sense of motivation and drive. So much so, he'd done a similar disappearing act yesterday. I looked all around their war zone area where two forts have been erected, bucket loads of stone and rock munitions piled on each side. No sign of him there. Walked back through the workshop to the boat where Eli had been doing sanding work. Sure enough, there was a scratch, scratch here, and a scratch scratch there. Climbing up the ladder to take a better look I found him sitting on a cockpit seat, legs crossed lazily, like he was out at sea. The paper mask covered most of his face, pushing his cheeks up so his eyes were partially forced closed. He was covered head to toe in a greyish dust, but still chirpily greeted me with, "Hi Mum, I'm working!"
Lelle with much amusement filled me in later: Eden had rocked up to him first thing in the morning, before breakfast, work clothes on asking for a job!!

I suspect this may have been fuelled somewhat, observing Eli's most recent payment for the hours of work he's put in over the last few weeks. Nothing like the sight of a fistful of cold hard cash in big brother's hands to drive him!
Have to say we're pretty impressed with our seven year old being highly motivated to go out and organize himself his first paying job - long may that last!
Must note we're very proud of Eli also, putting in some long hours in 28- 31 degrees Celsius, after his school work, sweating it out in full overalls and face mask, sanding the inside of a boat - tough job.

Eden and Salem also earnt themselves $2 each swimming out to rescue some mats used as padding for a boat trailer that was about to haul out a boat.
Salem has quickly cottoned onto the exchange rate.  I asked him to do a job for me, even offering to pay him. He negotiated, "Is that in U.S dollars?!" Knowing full well that it's worth more than the kiwi dollar!

Salem and Eden metal detecting at nearby Coco beach.
Nothing found but Salem did find a quarter without
the metal detector!

Easter roady.
With no sign of our long overdue rigging parts and the prospect of spending Easter in the boatyard, I decided it was time to brave up and take on a new challenge: attempting to drive on the right (wrong!) side of the road so we could have a look around.  After replacing the fuel filter, Lelle made the manual transmission ute available.  It was still running rough, most of the road was gravel, only one lane and there was alot more traffic about due to the long weekend, which meant dropping off the side of the road to get past each other! But hey, we made it over two days without one scratch or temporary memory loss over which side I should be on!
Day 1, going South.

The salt pyramids and ponds. The salt harvesting has
been going for over 350 years, a grim beginning
was the use of slaves.

Background is conveyer belt for the solar salt mines,
running atop of the road to the salt mountains. 

The slave huts built in 1850 to serve as sleeping quarters for the slaves working the salt mines.

Every weekend, the workers reportedly walked 7 hours
back to their homes and families in Rincon, making the return trip Sunday.

Definitely not the most
spacious of dwellings.

Flamingo!

Very excited to see our first flamingos in the wild.

Where's the surf ?!

Windsurf city, alot of major championships are held
here.

Day 2, heading North.

Bit more greenery.

Looking back down the coast
toward Kralendijk.

Checking out an old plantation.

The tiles look you be made of coral!

Unfortunately, the infamous Washington Slaagbai national park had closed from too much rain.  The roads are predominantly dirt tracks, so I guess it was to preserve them. So we did a little round trip to Rincon, the original settlement.

Rincon was the capital, but with the opening of the
port and all the trading going on there, Kralendijk
took over as the capital.

This well, some say, the water comes
all the way underground from the
Andes Mountains!

Goto Meer salt lake:

Flamingo!

Easter camping, not as we know it. 

Thanks for image, "we share Bonaire".

Every Easter the island opens up for camping.  It's my understanding you can go anywhere.  For weeks in advance, people collect up pallets, bits of timber, etc, take them to their preferred site and create dwellings to camp in.  Some have wooden structures on trailers, others have tents under wooden structures, and some have tents!

The rigging saga continues.
Hassling Lelle again this week on the whereabouts of the rigging terminals, he finally got an email reply.. I won't bore you with the details but suffice to say, there were a series of random unfortunate events and miscommunications that occurred. So bizarre, I was glad to have some faith in the Big Guy, knowing He's got our backs and trusting there's a reason for why we're here much longer than we'd planned. Next couple of days were tough though, our faith was definitely being tested, with a number of minor issues. Especially since the freight company was UPS, our previous experience with them and the dodgy one month delay on our last item we'd shipped from Europe.
Things are looking more hopeful, we received a tracking number, as of yesterday morning it had left Puerto Rico (via two stops in Germany, one stop England, one stop U.S!). As opposed to the direct flight we wete promised. Theoretically, it should be in Curacao, our neighbouring island but like Bonaire, still having ties to Holland and not wanting to give up any holidays, they are celebrating "King's Day". Hopefully we will receive the package tomorrow (Friday) because Sunday is another round of all day and night celebrations. Although Monday is not an official holiday, most employers have given up on expecting their employees to turn up anyway!
So, once again, as has been every week for the last 6 weeks or so, we hope that next week will be the big splash.
Update:
Even though today Friday is not a holiday, customs were closed so we still are unsure if our goods are on the island. Monday's holiday means nothing will happen till Tuesday.  This gives us three days till our visa runs out which they are currently not wanting to budge regarding any further extensions. Gonna be an interesting week ahead!

Suuz and Eli modelling the
bizarre "Dive man"
contraption left on board!

Thanks for reading. 😊