Day 21 - Flamingos, iguanas and a flight to Amsterdam

Day 21 (August 26, 2023)

Every vacation comes to an end at some point - today is the day for us. Wistfully, we pack our suitcases in the morning and take them to reception, where we can leave the suitcases in a guarded side room until we check out. Since our flight back doesn't leave until this evening, we can go to Flamingo Island with our band today and spend the day there. Perfect.

We manage to take the boat at 9:50 a.m. and are at Iguana Beach at 10:10 a.m., where we get two of the great double loungers today.

It's really hot today! My weather app says it's a whopping 30 degrees at 8 a.m. today - it feels like it's a paltry +37 degrees today. Sweat...

There are only a handful of flamingos in the water on the beach today. We are almost alone, so we get the water mattresses and paddle through the bay.

While my husband and son hijack the swimming platform and make daring jumps into the water, I visit Flamingo Beach with my daughter. But here only “adults” float on water mattresses in the bay and like yesterday there are 3 flamingos in the water basin. Great, we didn't miss anything here today either.

After lunch we have to pack our things and leave the island with a heavy heart. On the way to the boat launch we see two iguanas sitting next to the path. Since we still have flamingo food, I test whether the iguanas like flamingo food: and how!!! They immediately come running – which frightens us for a moment – and greedily eat the food out of our hands. If we had known that, we would have kept a little more food because the flamingos didn't really want any of it.

We leave the island at around 2:15 p.m., collect our luggage and are at the rental car company at around 3 p.m. Since the minibus that is supposed to take us to the airport is on the way, an employee jumps into our car and drives us to the airport in a rental car. Nice service – I can only recommend the landlord Wheels2Go ! Top service, super helpful and top vehicles!

At the airport we first notice that our plane is not on the departure board... Amsterdam cannot be found as a destination. Based on the flight number, I realize that we are probably taking a detour via Bonaire. Oops, we didn't see that when we booked.

For better or worse, we have to move now. When it feels like +37 degrees, it's a real pain to slip into long pants. The broth is running, there is no air conditioning in the main hall at the airport. After we checked in our suitcases, we went through security - ugh - from now on there's air conditioning!

Exceptionally, we leave promptly at 6:30 p.m. towards Bonaire. But disillusionment when it comes to the plane. As cool as I thought the KLM plane was on the outbound flight, with Wi-Fi on board and plenty of space, the flight back is just as disappointing. No WiFi and far less space than on the last plane… After we made a short stop on Bonaire, we continued towards Amsterdam. I treat myself to a bottle of white wine and try to sleep. The flight will be long and so will the day tomorrow, because we have an almost 8 hour transit in Amsterdam and want to do some sightseeing during that time. So it's going to be a loooong day - if everything works out as we planned 😊