captain cooks grave, and almost ours too.....

so we never saw this, I took it from somewhere else, but we hiked down to this area and snorkled around the corner from this. I kinda wished we had hiked to see this, but there was only so much time. ( and energy )

At the trailhead we saw a man with two labs, and he said, have you ever hked this trail before, and something about the look he gave us* and the way he said it was troubling. But I thought, how bad can it be if this guy takes his dogs down here a couple of times a week.

Indeed.

The trail was very long, and rather scenic to see the ocean and lava in the distance as we hiked down. when we got to the bottom, i said, well that was a hard hike but look what a great private beach we get for ourselves. hahahahah. I did notice some kayaks in the distance, headed our way, and that was a bit worrisome.

I told Jhumpi, we have to be very careful on entering the water, and went to demonstrate the proper technique, when my feet contacted algae and slipped right out from me and I fell on my butt. Luckily my head, a fatty and largely useless appendage, took the brunt of the impact.

I took the first snorkel, and spied many great fish, tang and Humuhumunukunukuapua'a *and coronet fish, wrasse and parrot fish and one very great octopus. while i was snorkeling the kayakers showed up and they just kept coming. There were piles of kayaks on our private beach. Jhumpi was sitting on the beach feeding birds our precious food.

We took turns snorkelling and enjoying the private, shady spot we had secured by being the first people there. We started to get tired, and to run low on food and water so we decided to climb back up. It was a lot hotter, and steeper on the way up. It was frankly rather unpleasant to the point of being miserable. toward the top, I didn't know how long we had left to climb, and we were almost out of water, and I was worryed. This whole thing had been my stupid idea, and what a lousy tour guide I was turning out to be. We took some rests, and then we saw some people chatting, and they chatted with us, and then they offered us some food and water. They were our angles. It would have been very miserable if we hadn't found them. So amid great rejoycing on our parts we finally made it to the top, and the jeep was still there, and then we went to get ice cream. YAY

fancy hotel

I took a picture from the hotel window of the great view of Mauna loa, but it was on Jhumpis camera, these are unrelated pictures.

So I kept thinking , when i saw pictures of this luxury hotel we were going to stay at, that I had been there before, and when I got there, it all came back to me. it is the place were I tore up my knee on lava rocks when i swam with Manta Rays.

so when we arrived there, I was ready to go snorkeling. The paper about the hotel said that it didn't have its own beach, but that you could walk from it and snorkel. so based on that , we went to the front desk to find out where we could walk to and snorkel, and this snippy youngster tried to point us to the beginners beach, just because we are old and blimpish, ( I originally typed plumpish, which is not a word I guess, and spell checker proposed blimpish, which i like better.) and I said listen here young lady, I have a scar on my knee that i actually got at this hotel, so don't think I am some green horn leghorn, no siree, and later we stole some towels to get her in trouble. haha only part of that is true. But it is sadly true that we did not get to snorkel that night, but we did get to swim in the amazing pool and Jacuzzi, and the tube slide that was cool. We ate a really expensive dinner in the manta lounge, where the waiter says you can see mantas every night but we never saw any, maybe we didn't stay up late enough/ Well that was where Jhumpi spoke the fateful words, we haven't been getting much exercise, and tune in next time to see what happens with that!

day three, off we go to Kona

Imiloa astronomy center bound, we first stopped again at Ken's pancake house, where we saw a green gecko on a fence, and it tried to sell us insurance. We told the people at the restaurant that the previous day we had gone to an inferior, overpriced, frou frou restaurant for breakfast, which had driven us back to their fine establishment.

Then we went to the astronomy center, which is a very cool place that combines Hawaiin history and beliefs with scientific knowledge gathered from the Mauna Kea observatory. They have a native garden outside, and I learned the difference between indigenous, endemic, and canoe plants.

After that, we went to visit the statue of King Kamahameha in Hilo, before heading north to Akaka falls, in the picture . That is a very pretty place were you hike through lots of tropical plants to see a very tall waterfall. This part of the big island is where all the beautiful tropical scenery is found. Also cows.

Waimea valley overlook was our next stop. It is a beautiful place and a sacred place depicted in many post cards. We learned that the missionaries brought disease to the natives and wiped out a lot of them, then had to get people from other places to do the manual labor so the descendants of the mikanele , Hawaiian word for missionarys, could make a lot of money. Which is why there are so many Japanese and Filipino people on Hawaii.

Then we went to get some lunch at a little place down the road. We got delicious ice cream and banana bread, and we picked up a CD by Iz to listen to, so that I could experience white people guilt and Jhumpi could come up with logical justifications of imperialism ( which sounds worse than it is .) There was a big dog named Elvis hanging around, and he was the first dog I got to pet on the island. The owner of the store, who sounded like he was from Chicago or the east coast, but wouldn't admit it, chased Elvis away. I wanted to buy souvenir's, but I restrained myself.

So we headed off to the big luxury hotel, eating ice cream and enjoying the scenery.

lava tubes

lava tubes, lava tubes, lalalalala-lava tubes.

They are very popular. Lots of people park here and go here.

We parked in a different lot and walked here, through some lovely tropical foliage and hearing but not seeing birds. It is very cool and neat to walk through a tube in the earth made by lava.

after walking through the lava tubes, we drove back to Hilo, and guess where we ate dinner..

we walked around Hilo after eating, and came upon this wonder ful old theatre that was showing Buck, and the lady at the door invited us in and showed us around.

Now of all the ways I failed as a tour guide, this is the one that saddens me most because instead of staying to watch the movie, I said , we have a busy day tomorrow, lets go back to the hostel and figure out what we are doing. I wish we had seen the movie.

more day 2

Ok and then we drove up to the place where the lava enters the sea but there were a ton of people and they drove crazy and made me mad and I was hot so I let Jhumpi go ahead and I sat in the car and watched these cute lava colored shore birds fly around and into cliffs in the lava rock. The ocean was so dark blue and white capped on the windward side, I just sat there and enjoyed the breeze.

Then we went to the petroglyphs and learned about the Hawaiians putting umbilical stumps in hole in the rock. Also cool carvings, very nice. There was a teenager that stepped on the petroglyphs, instead of staying on the boardwalk, and when his parents said, now bobby.. he was all duh like I am gonna do somethin to them and I was like stupid little crap head, you better get out of here before I spit on your Abercromby and Finch tea shirt not really but I was so glad I don't have any teenagers. But why would you ruin a perfectly good vacation by bringing along a teenager?

Then we went back to the Lava tubes....

OK then day two already.

We left the hostel early and headed to the little hamlet of Volcano to have breakfast. Tasty, but overpriced and lousy service.

They also had a waitress who looked 80 but talked like a 6 year old.

Fox news was on the telly, and I saw Reagan with his cav. Darn him for having one good point.

There was a photograph on the wall marked down from $800.00 to $150.00 what a bargain!

From there we headed to Volcanoes national park. We stopped at the visitors center, where i learned that Hawaii was formed from volcanoes. DUH.

Also they guilted me into buying a water bottle and filling it from their rain water faucet.

I learned that Jhumpi did not suffer from as much GREEN GUILT as I do , as Jhumpi would not buy a bottle and was all, why, are you stupid, we have water bottles and I was all yeah, but not ones that the purchase of which contributes money to the native plants and Jhumpi is all, the guy on NPR said natives are stupid and I was all, He is a republican.

So then we drove to the first crater, which is called the place where Pele lives. There was a lot of Vog coming out, and it got in my head and made me all voggy headed, which i am to this day. We sat and listened to this lady who looked a little like the wicked witch but not green and of course I mean that as a compliment since i also look like a witch according to Linda who looks like a Disney princess but acts like cruella deville,

anyhoo, she was saying cool things about the volcanoes blowing up and causing mayhem and whatnot and it was very interesting and I suggest if you are interested you go to the national Parks website and read more about it because i suffer from CRS syndrome, and i don't remember what that is. But there were these white birds with long tails, which she said nest in the cauldera and hunt out at sea. I guess they are immune to vog.

Part of the road was closed due to vog, and we went back the other way and stopped at another place, where there were steam vents, basically vents with steam coming out. Jhumpi walked along the trail to see all the sites, and I drove back to the visitor center to pick up Jhump and save time, we went to see an art gallery that had beautiful, expensive things done by the many artistic people who are drawn to Hawaii because it is awesome.

from there we drove down to the coast, to see where the lava falls into the sea. It is a beautiful drive, and the water looks awesome next to the lava. And then you wouldn't believe what we saw!

To Be continued......