Friday, February 24, 2017  
Today we went to the slave huts. The slaves worked the salt ponds to collect and ship the salt. They camped in the small houses right by the water. Each Friday afternoon they walked seven hours to Rincon to spend time with their families. Sunday they would return to the huts.

Four obelisks were used as navigational shore markers to guide ships that came to load the salt. They were painted red, white, blue, and orange, the colors of the Dutch flag. 

From there we went to Pink Beach. In 1999 there was a storm that washed away the beautiful pink sand. The sand was pink because of the crushed shells of the millions of bright pink sea creatures called foraminifera. Diana snorkeled, but other than extra large fish, there was nothing special here. 

We continued to Salt Pier. Diana snorkeled and saw a good variety of fish, but by the pier, she saw nothing special. 

Near the pier, we saw the mountains of salt that was being harvested. Bonaire ships salt all over the world. 

Then we drove along the southern coast by the Pekelmeer Flamingo Sanctuary. It is one of only four areas of the world where flamingos breed. The pools of water appear pink because of the tiny rosy pink brine shrimp that live in the water. 

The Caribbean  flamingo is the most colorful of all flamingos due to the red carotenes in their diet from the pink brine shrimp, so they say.

Willemstoren Lighthouse is right across the road from the flamingo sanctuary. This is also where the car refused to go. We asked a passerby to notify our host, who got in touch with the car rental person. When she arrived, we shared with her our thoughts. The fuel tank gauge was not working. The car said full tank of gas, but it was not correct. The car was out of gas! We ended up with a different car for the rest of our rental.