The alarm clock started ringing at 3:15. We dragged ourselves out of bed around 3:40. After doing some things I don't remember doing (presumably putting on clothes), we were on the road by 4:05. Elly drove while I wrote the blog post and captioned photos from the day before. We were parked at Hilo about 15 minutes before the sun began to rise, still in full dark.
We got ourselves oriented toward east and walked until we could see the ocean. Our quest was to find a beach described to us by Shad where crabs scuttled out to the rocks and performed Sun Salutation to the dawn. We didn't find his crab beach, but we did watch an excellent sunrise.
We walked down Banyan Drive, admiring the strange, awesome, almost horrific trees. Their branches spread high and wide, then long tentacles of vines grow downward. As far as I can tell, they then grow back into the ground, forming massive clusters of trunks. I could google it, but for now I'm entertaining my unlikely story of ouroboros-like trees.
By the time we got back to the car the sun was pretty high in the sky. We wandered through the massive japanese Lili'uokalani Gardens. Bridges and stepping-stone paths connected plazas and pagodas and arches. Massive banzai-like trees, and interesting asian structures made from lava stone, and ponds. It was really quite amazing, I'll let the photos do most of the talking for me. At the Gardens Elly found a pack of semi-domesicated cats. She was able to coax one to play with her using a tattered palm frond.
Pretty tired, we took a break for coffee at Surf Break Cafe, and used their Wi-Fi to consult the guidebook for more Hilo-based activities while we killed time waiting for our helicopter ride. Did I forget to mention? Today we get to ride a helicopter over active volcano sites! The guide recommended checking out Coconut Island and Big Island Candies.
Coconut Island was a beautiful park built on an island a short ways from the shore and connected by a man-made walking bridge. We spent a while wading across to other smaller islands, looking for crabs and rocks. On the return trip from one of these outer islands Elly slipped and went butt-first into the ocean, drenching herself up to her waist.
By the time we got back to the car we had just enough time for a short visit to Big Island Candies, a chocolate shop known for their macadamias. Elly, still soaked through but no longer dripping, and I roamed the store looking at all the awesome sounding (but quite expensive!) chocolates. We decided to get a small box of passion fruit filled chocolates for ourselves. Then it was off to the airport!
After a short orientation we joined two other couples in the helicopter. We had our seats buckled, our inflatable life vests strapped on, and our headphones clamped over our ears, pumping island music (and later the pilot's narration) directly into our brains. Then it was take time for take off! Taking off in a helicopter is much different from a jet. Instead of the forward motion eventually becoming lift, in a helicopter there is a sudden, unsteady feeling lurch and then you're airborne! We watched the airport fall away, and soon the town of Hilo looked like a toy model.
We flew over Hilo, then huge macadamia nut fields, miles of untamed jungle, and then eventually the lava fields. We got to see active lava cones glowing red hot just under a thin crust of rock. We saw thin streams of lava breaking through the crust and igniting the nearby forest. We saw a town that has been rebuilt directly on top of the now cooled lava directly over the site where a town used to exist before it was covered in rock. We flew through clouds, and we flew lazy figure eights over the Akaka Falls (which Elly and I would hike later that day). The pilot narrated the flight, telling us facts about the various sites we were seeing. It was really incredible.
We landed safe and sound but hungry. We'd pinned down an asian/Hawaiian greasy spoon the guidebook recommended before the flight so we made a beeline straight to it as soon as we hit the ground. Elly got a patty melt (I think she'd had enough adventure since breakfast) but I decided to try the Loco Moco. This dish, originating in Hilo, is a scoop of rice topped with a hamburger patty, fried egg, and brown gravy. There are many variations, but that one is the original. It was quite good, but clearly not something you should eat on a regular basis!
After lunch we drove to the site of the Akaka Falls, which we had seen from the air. When we got there Elly found more kitties, so we took another break from our regular adventure to play with cats. This group of cats contained several young kittens, clearly only a few months old. A lady eating her lunch at the park gave them an avocado rind that they eagerly scraped clean. Who knew cats liked avocado?
You could park right at the start of the hike, which was a paved loop around the valley. The walk was just under half a mile, but the views were incredible. The pièce de résistance is a 442 foot waterfall, but the rest of the walk features beautiful, vibrant plants growing along the river, vines dangling over the water bearing beautiful flowers, and several other smaller waterfalls. Unfortunately, just after we began the walk it began to pour down rain. Did I say it didn't really rain in Hawaii? Boy, was I wrong. This was a monsoon. In just a couple of minutes Elly and I were completely drenched to the core. We were worried about the camera getting wet (we couldn't afford another replacement camera!), but we took what pictures we could, while Elly ingeniously sheltered the camera using a large leaf she found on the ground. Completely soaked to the core but still in good spirits we returned to the car to find that the heater in the rental car didn't work. We wrapped ourselves in towels for the drive home. While we never really got dry (my shirt is still soaked through nearly 6 hours later) we were warm enough in the 80 degree weather. In Colorado this time of year that drive would have been a death sentence!
As we pulled in to Kona I was snapping a frenzy of pictures out the car window. This had been the first clear-skied night during sunset that we'd had the whole trip! The second the car pulled to a stop I leapt out, scrambled into the condo, exchanged my sopping clothes for my dry swim trunks, and continued snapping pictures of the sunset from the beach. When I felt I'd gotten enough pictures I joined Elly in the jacuzzi. Every few minutes as the sky turned another shade I'd leap out, dry off my hands, and snap several more pictures. I continued to do this (jacuzzi, pictures, jacuzzi, pictures) until the camera had run out of batteries (we just charged it that morning!) then I switched to taking pictures from my phone until the sun was down below the horizon. Then we splashed around in the pool until full dark.
As I write this blog post Elly is preparing for the flight to Maui in the morning. She's packing the bag, making sure we eat all the remaining food in the condo, and trying to figure out what can be mailed home now so we have less to take on the plane. I'm going to go help her out now.
Tomorrow: Maui!
(I gotta do a little bragging here - B's photosphere of Lili'uokalani was accepted by Google Maps to appear on its [google maps'] official page when people search for/look at Lili'uokalani Gardens. Mah Man! -E)
Photos
https://plus.google.com/photos/105719328153023565846/albums/5942283175706286385
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