hawaii...where we have been for nearly two weeks now, though it feels like ages longer. 5 days/4 nights on Oahu, at jeff and alycia's beautiful garden setting of a home in waimanolo, sleeping on their heavenly double-layer automatic pump up air mattress, floating off to sleep every night after bowls of salmon curry with vegetables and quinoa and homemade chocolate chip cookies, being enamoured by the waldorf school education training that alycia is undertaking and watching the bright children perform traditional hawaiian hula dances for may day....
the big island has been a different story.
whereas oahu flowed and was easy and comfortable the whole time, this place has been a mixed bag. i think that is what it is (or can be) for everyone. i am growing to love it every day. there's been many times i wanted to leave (such as the four nights we camped on our friend abram's jungle floor, tent hodgepodged in between roots, pieces of lava rocks, an ant's nest (which we saw after we took the tent up four days later), a hovering army of bloodthirsty mosquitoes ready to attack at any moment, pelting rain all night on the roof of our tent, dampness, and a chorus of invader frog species that have been multiplying out of control ever since they hitched a ride on a home depot plant shipment a couple years ago. we felt ourselves being overtaken by the jungle, vines growing around us slowly in that little tent, sleep deprived by the rain and chirping frogs, and wary of the mosquitoes around every turn. it was a blessing though to spend so much time with veda and aubri, abram's baby and partner, and help entertain veda with little books and her walking cart (she's nearly standing on her own!) she's a beautiful healthy baby who eats lots of poi (hawaiian taro root paste) bananas, fresh coconuts and papayas. on sunday we went to the weekly pahoa/puna area estatic dance, where over a hundred people rock out and move their bodies amidst a stunning jungle/ocean setting that looks out over the sea. we took the rest of that afternoon to walk for 5 miles down the coast and back up to our jungle haven, enjoying the wild surf against black lava rocks and the trees and a good chocolate bar and the smattering of rain and running into my oldtime bellingham friend megan who lives on the island too.
on monday...we got a car! our little home on wheels, a white chevy cobalt that is our new best friend and our ticket to freedom. it's taken us everywhere on this varied island, up the east side hilo coast to our campground of the past four nights, kalopa state park (a great spot for anyone traveling to the island, three tent sites up this long hill in a state forest reserve, quiet and clean and maintained by a great guy named beau). our accomodations weren't that much improved there, though we did have a shelter for our tent, but the shelter consisted of a concrete floor that our thin traveling yoga mats did little well to pad. we slept for two nights on that, and then the last two in our reclining seats in the parking lot of the campground, trying to get comfortable. (don't ever try to sleep squished with knees bent to chest in the back seat; i did that for half the first night and my knees still hurt sporadically!) but it was a great place to stay and we met some nice people, including a man from NYC who is a botanist studying a species of eggplant, and is on a 6-Hawaiian island tour researching his specimens.
the big island is varied and incredible. take for example yesterday, when we drove down to the west side coast and went swimming at an absolutely picture perfect beach at the currently-remodel-phase resort of mauna kea....swimming in pristine aqua blue waters at 85 degrees, picnicking on the beach and tasting the salty water on our lips, sweating and getting kissed by the sun....driving up the hill back to waimea (our hometown the past few days) and the temperature dropping 20 degrees, then winding back down to the saddle road, a road that goes between the big island's two biggest volcanoes, mauna kea and mauna loa, and watching the landscape transform from grassy fertile hills to dry grass with brush and jackaranda trees (brilliant purple) to desert like nothingness and a military training area up the hill to the visitor's center of mauna kea, through a sudden onset of mist making the black lava field look incredibly creepy, ascending the road seeing nothing, until we emerge into blue again at mauna kea, resting at nearly 10,000 feet, 42 degrees, chilly to the bone, cinder cones and lava rock crunching beneath our feet, watching the sun set over the underlaying clouds and shine into our faces, wind whipping our bodies, taking pictures of each other on the edge, clouds illuminated, sacred hawaiian site, looking up to the summit above (at over 13,000 feet, the tallest mountain in the world if you count it's height below sea level!) we attended a constellation tour and watched the stars and constellations come out into the night sky, looking through amazing telescopes at saturn (so cute with it's ring encircling it!) and the moon and orion's belt and other star clusters. we drove down at 10pm through mist again, emerging into pouring rain at hilo, back up the coast to our quiet little haven and slept in the car again.
we enjoy the north side of the island a lot....the drive from waimea to hawi and the north tip of the island is stunning, seeing haleakala peak of maui in the distance, a charming little town, and a valley at the end of the road that holds endless long waterfalls if you dare to climb down into it. we have driven through rainbows, watched the weather shift in an instant several times, swam in the ocean, and are enjoying a container a day of the most delicious lime/sugar cane/coconut drink that we also had on maui, made fresh on the big island! at abram's we ate at least one fresh coconut a day, water and all (he's a great coconut tree climber). today we splurged on a rustic classic charming hotel room with a shared bathroom at an old standby hotel in honaunau that my friend green recommended, and this afternoon we checked in and took a nap IN A REAL BeD! wow, it must be heaven! we have not slept in a real bed in so long, and have not slept well in so long, really the whole time we've been on the big island!
we have a library card, and have been enjoying the CD selection that the hawaii library system has to offer us, as well as an hour of internet every day if you like. we are off to explore some places by the coast that our friends blake and may recommended. tomorrow we are going to volcanoes national park to explore the active still forming side of the island!
we're heading back to the mainland on thursday after a few more days on oahu starting monday....hope every one is doing well!
much love,
m & c
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