Fodor's Expert Review Salt Pans

Rising like mountains of snow towering over lakes of pink-hued water, Bonaire's salt pans are hard to miss. Harvested once a year, the "ponds" are owned by Cargill, Inc., which has reactivated the 19th-century solar salt industry with great success. Look in the distance across the pans to the abandoned solar saltworks that is now a designated flamingo sanctuary. With the naked eye you might be able to make out a pink-orange haze just on the horizon. This sanctuary is completely protected, no entrance is allowed, and it is one of the world's largest flamingo populations and breeding grounds. The flamingo is Bonaire's national symbol.