Fireworks

Happy New Year to all, and best wishes for a wonderful 2015!

Every culture has its own traditions for welcoming the New Year, and it is safe to say that the defining characteristic for Bonaire's New Year is FIREWORKS.  There were many locales up and down the coastline setting off colorful and noisy rockets, some associated with resorts but many just family groups and partiers.  The noise started at dusk, and the color display as soon as it became dark.  It all built to a crescendo at midnight, with an unbelievable number of rockets in the air, for a surprisingly long time.  The show lasted into the night, with a final blast just before dawn.

You see some amazing fireworks displays by highly organized groups in big cities.  But this ad hoc event on an island with less than 20,000 residents was the best I've ever seen.