Kona Pier Beach (30jan)

Posted on Friday, 31 January 2014, 23:24 by Alexandra

This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

This morning was so beautiful! No clouds at all and it was just amazing seeing the clear blue sky again. We started the day pretty late today again, no hurry on Hawaii, no. We walked north and were heading for a beach we could see from our hotel. But we stopped at the Kona Farmer’s Market on the way, I bought some water, a loaf of pineapple banana bread, and a new bracelet, the one I bought the other day didn’t feel right on my wrist. This new one is green with tiny turtles and beads on it. Much better! Caroline bought some fruit and I wished I could do it too. But without knives it’s kinda hard to eat a pineapple, mango or papaya. They have so many crazy fruits at those markets; strawberry papaya, apple bananas, rainbow papaya and bananas the size of my pinky.

When we came to the Kona Pier we saw a tiny man-made beach there. It was seriously the tiniest beach I’ve ever seen and it was right by the boats and it wasn’t particularly nice. The sand was white, but felt like salt under our feet. We asked the girl in the rental booth for the big beach we could see from our hotel and she said it was a very rocky beach and lava rocks were in between the sand and the water. And it was private property. So we decided to spend the day at that tiny tiny beach. I don’t know, it might have been like 50 meters wide or something.

It was burning today so if you didn’t go in the water once in a while it felt like you were melting away. It was awesome! And I just imagined being on a nicer beach.

At 4pm it got cloudy and windy so we left the beach soon thereafter and went to a coffee place right next door. I had a chai latte and we got free Wi-Fi there. I didn’t have my computer with me so I just went through Facebook, checked my e-mail and account balances. I have not been spending a lot of money lately so I have like $600 in total (both American account and Swedish). So I will have enough money to pay for my extra baggage back home on Monday.

For dinner we had cup noodles on the balcony with a view over the darkening sky. It was a very nice and warm evening so I didn’t mind spending $2 on dinner tonight.

I only have two more full days here on Hawaii. On Sunday morning I will leave this amazing place, go back to San Diego and then to Sweden. I seriously can’t believe my countdown app that tells me that I go back to Sweden in four days!! Well, I guess I could say three days too, that’s when my big journey begins with a 9 hours layover in San Diego.

I DON’T WANT TO GO BACK! I’ve found a new me these past two weeks. The hidden part of me that wants adventures. I don’t wanna be stuck in Sweden. I wanna go to Australia and work as a bartender for a year. I wanna go wherever and train to be a surf instructor (I heard it’s very easy to be one if you just have the ambition and friendliness). I wanna explore more of USA. I wanna work at Banana Bungalow on Maui. I wanna travel! I just started and I don’t wanna stop.

But first I need to get my degree and earn some money. And I think that will work out. I just got a mentor for my thesis so as soon as we start with that I will get money from CSN. I got an email from Cultural Care telling me to call them as soon as I come home to Sweden because they probably want to offer me a part time job as a recruiter. And then I hope I will get that job at Liseberg this summer. I’m gonna save as much as possible so I can start my next adventure as soon as possible! Or I will get back to my boring routines so quickly and easily in Sweden that I will take my degree, start working and keep working until I retire and then eventually die….

2014-01-30, 20:22

Sunny view from our balcony. Kona Farmer’s Market. Hot dogs or legs?

Kahaluu Beach Park (29jan)

Posted on Friday, 31 January 2014, 22:57 by Alexandra

This morning was so boring! No rain, but it was cloudy. Our plan for the day was to take a look at the pool area here on the hotel and then take the bus to a beach south of here. The bus only goes once every two hours and we just missed the one at 10:40am, so we spent that extra time by the pool. The sun was slowly coming out from behind the clouds and it actually was a nice day after that. There is a lagoon on the hotel properties too. But the pool isn’t anything special, it is very small. But it is right next to the ocean.

We took the bus, $2 each ride (it was better on both Oahu and Maui where the tickets lasted 4 hours after purchase and where you could by day passes). For 20 minutes until we reached Kahaluu. I thought the stop before sounded nice, Magic Sands/White Sands until the shuttle driver yesterday told us that that beach is called Magic Sands because the sand completely disappears from the beach sometimes because of the waves. So we took the beach park instead. It was tiny, but it was a beach at least. There are hardly any beaches here! The sand was a mix between white and black sand, so it was pretty cool. But what made my day was in the water. First of all, the snorkeling there was better than at Hanauma Bay on Oahu. The coral was much nicer and it was more colorful fishes. I didn’t see any turtles, even if there were a lot of signs on the beach telling us to not touch the turtles. When I got out of the water I asked one of the volunteers at the beach about turtles, and he said it was very common to see them there and pointed out towards a tide pool where people were pointing and taking pictures. I walked out there with my camera and there were four (4!!) turtles in the extremely shallow water eating things of the rocks. They weren’t very big, maybe like 4dm. But it was turtles! I spent a lot of time out there taking pictures of them, Caroline got tired pretty fast, haha!

The rest of the day we just lay at the beach working on our tans. About 1 hour before the bus came it started raining so the last 30 minutes, when it was pouring down and impossible to stay at the beach, we were under a roof just waiting for time to fly by.

On the bus back we saw the sunset out in the water and on the other side, towards the mountain were two big rainbows! So beautiful. The sunset was amazing, as it was yesterday. It’s like the colors here are different than on the other islands. It gets way more orange and pink or whatever that color is called. After the sun was set, when we were walking towards a restaurant the sky was all pink and the water all purple. I don’t think I’ve ever seen water with that color, it was incredible.

We actually had dinner out tonight again, but that was the last time for sure. I totally forgot that I wanted to eat an Hawaiian pizza on Hawaii. So we found a restaurant eventually that served pineapple pizza and that pizza was the best pizza I’ve had this year! It was Kaluau Pork on it with a hot/sweet sauce. Soo good. When we got back to the hotel we tried getting access to the internet but it didn’t work. This hotel sucks! We spent a lot more money here than on the hostels, and the hostels had internet. Stupid hotel!! It’s not that I’m addicted to internet, but with it I can see my Swedish account balance. And there isn’t any Starbucks around here either… Stupid!

I’m thinking about maybe buying internet for 24 hours on Saturday so I can post everything before going back to Sweden. It’s $10 per 24 hours.

Tomorrow morning we are gonna call Enterprise to rent a car for Friday and after that walk north for a while to a nice white sand beach. I’m also gonna check if there are any other nice beaches more south of here. The bus goes pretty far south. Let’s hope the sun is out tomorrow!

2014-01-29, 20:36

The lagoon we have at the hotel. The pool area. Part of the outdoor lobby. Kahaluu Beach Park. Honu, Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle HAPPY! These were just babies and just a third the size of the ones we saw on Waikiki Beach, Oahu. The sunsets on Big Island really are much prettier than on the other islands.

Aloha, Big Island (28jan)

Posted on Friday, 31 January 2014, 22:24 by Alexandra

Okay, so here we are, on the Island of Hawaii. The Big Island. The rain followed us from Maui and the flight here was the bumpiest I’ve ever been through. It was good that it was only a 30 minute flight, but it was scary.

The airport was the smallest I’ve ever seen and it was outside. And in the rain that wasn’t very nice. We got a shuttle pretty much right away and 20 minutes later we were checking in at Royal Kona Resort. It’s a nice hotel, no beach, but it’s right by the water and we have a nice view over Kona and the water. I can imagine it being very pretty when it’s not cloudy.

For an hour we were just in the room and at 4pm we went out to eat an early dinner at Bubba Gumps Shrimp Co. I had a shrimp pasta dish with lemon garlic sauce. Really good, but expensive, so from now on we will eat cheap things in the room, like noodles. Or Subway that’s a few blocks away from the hotel.

After our dinner we walked around in Kona looking in souvenir shops. I bought my third bracelet and the magnet from Big Island. We glimpsed the sunset and it was so beautiful. Everything turned orange. When we were eating some of the clouds over the ocean cleared and it looked like tomorrow is gonna be a nice day! We are gonna take a look at the resort and then head to the closest beach. Which unfortunately is a bit from here, but we can easily walk there in like 15 minutes.

We bought some snacks on the way home, like the typical chocolate covered macadamia nuts. Now, nothing much is happening. So I guess I will go to bed or something. I didn’t get much sleep last night…

2014-01-28, 20:36

Goodbye Maui… Aloha, Big Island… Rainy view from our balcony. Our hotel, Royal Kona Resort.

The sunsets here on Big Island is better than on Maui and Oahu though.

No Internet

Posted on Thursday, 30 January 2014, 18:06 by Alexandra

I’m alive after the extremely bumpy flight from Maui to Big Island, but I miss Banana Bungalow… Hostels are so much better than hotels, they have free and functioning Wi-Fi (and young and fun people instead of oldies)… I’m thinking about buying Wi-Fi at the hotel on Saturday so I can share my adventures I’ve been through these past days. And don’t forget; pretty pictures of turtles!! Lots of turtle pictures!

Right now I’m at coffee place, looking up account balances, driving instructions for tomorrow’s roadtrip and of course all the silly things that’s going on on Facebook.

Rainy day

Posted on Tuesday, 28 January 2014, 1:52 by Alexandra

Today we had some pretty nice plans, but none of them happened. It was pouring down this whole day so I spent the whole day at the hostel watching TV shows and movies and playing cards. Zach made an awesome chicken soup for everyone and it was perfect for a cold night like tonight.

It sucks a little that our last day on Maui was so rainy. But it wasn’t too bad actually. I’m really gonna miss this hostel and all the awesome people I’ve met the past week. I would gladly stay here on Maui the rest of the time, but I can’t afford it…

It will be fun though going to Big Island. I can’t believe we are going to our last island tomorrow! And after that I’m going home to Sweden. One more week… I can’t believe it!!

Beach party

Posted on Monday, 27 January 2014, 0:33 by Alexandra

What a crazy day it has been! We were on the waiting list for the tour to Little Beach but didn’t make it, because apparently the beach party on the nude beach on Sundays is very popular. I understand why. It was crazy! But so much fun. On the way there we stopped for a little something to drink and then to the big tour group on Big Beach. We went in the water for a while and the waves weren’t as big today, so we didn’t have to swim for our lives. Sitting in the sun for a while and then a small hike over to Little Beach. I can’t remember being on a nude beach before. I mean, it’s normal in Sweden to be topless but not completely naked. And most of them were old men. So gross! There was one old man standing right in front of me and he had long white hear, a hat, sunglasses, an open mouth and just danced with his junk to the drums, not even correctly. So gross! Eventually one stopped thinking about it though, so that was nice. There were young couple with babies there too and I can’t imagine it being very good for them. There were a lot of hippies who sold cookies and chocolate and stuff. Shit! And no Stephen Tyler.

We were a bunch of people sitting and talking and around sunset they started with the fire dancers. It was really cool and they were talented!

Back to the hostel and in the hot tub for a while because it was pretty cold in Wailuku. On the beach it was really nice. After the hot tub I was so tired so I went to my room.

Tomorrow is our last full day here on Maui and we are gonna go on an easy hike up in the mountain right behind the hostel. It is supposed to be very beautiful. And after I hope I will be able to get to a beach where turtles are lying on the sand.

That little tiger girl is apparently at that beach every sunday painted like different animals. Two weeks ago she was a snake I was told. She was really good with the fire sticks too.

Haleakala Crater hike

Posted on Sunday, 26 January 2014, 1:22 by Alexandra

Wow, another amazing day is over and this time my whole body is so sore! A 12 mile hike is nothing to play with. And just so you know, 12 miles is approximately 20 kilometers. We started by driving up the big volcano, driving past the clouds by 4,000 feet up to an elevation of 10,000 feet (3000m). It was crazy being that far above the clouds! So the hike went like this. We started at 10,000 feet elevation. Hiked down into the crater to 7,000 feet, then through the crater and then up to an elevation of 8,000 feet where we got in the car and drove up to 10,000 feet again to watch the sunset above the clouds.

The first four miles were downhill 3,000 feet. And that was actually hard. It wasn’t super steep, but it was all sand so it was hard to walk. The second four miles was at the bottom of the crater and that landscape was otherworldly. It seriously looked like Mars!! All red and black sand, and big lava rocks everywhere. So amazingly cool! The last four miles were uphill and I thought they were gonna kill me. Our guide said that the “small” and flat uphill in the crater was just the warmup for the last four miles. That hill killed my calves so bad so I was afraid I wouldn’t make the last bit, but it was no problem at all. That last part was uphill all the time up the crater’s side but it was rocky and it was more climbing than walking. So I did fine! But at the end, the last 0.7 miles I saw the parked cars way up there and that’s when my thighs really started hurting! So typical, right at the end they start to give up. But I made it! And when I came up I totally fell down on the asphalt. The world were spinning around so bad. I did a little stretching and then waited in the car for the rest of the group to finish the hike.

When everyone was done we drove up to the top again to watch the sunset. It was ridiculously cold! I had one tank top (which I was hiking in and that was perfect, it was warm with a breeze, perfect hiking weather), one long sleeved t-shirt and two hoodies. I was like a Michelin man. I had Capri tights on and a towel wrapped around my legs up there and I wasn’t very cold actually. It wasn’t super cold, but maybe 7C? Sometimes there is snow up there because it’s so cold. And it makes sense with the high altitude.

To watch the sunset above the clouds was an experience! It looked like a big snow landscape. There are always clouds over the Hawaii islands and it got more during the evening. So we saw the sun disappear behind the clouds instead of the water. It was cool! But I was so happy when it was completely set so we could go back to the warm van and go back to the hostel.

Back at the hostel I sat in the hot tub for so long. Maybe 1.5 hours? It wasn’t as warm as two days ago when I almost fainted after, but today it was perfect and all the muscles were softening. It was awesome! A big party even if most of us were exhausted from the hike.

The hollows of my knees hurt so bad right now and I can imagine my butt and thighs are gonna hurt tomorrow. It’s a good thing the tour tomorrow starts at 1pm and is just gonna be a beach party with beach volleyball among other things. Now I really need to get to sleep, I’m sooo tired… like all the other days, except more tonight…

Our awesome tour guides, Marcos and Kaitlin. At the same level as the clouds at 6,000 feet elevation. Me, Caroline and our roommate Sabrina. The Haleakala crater from above. The protected “Silversword plant” that only blooms once and then dies. The world’s end! Lots of lava rocks! The last four miles started here! Still in a good mood :). The sunset from above the clouds :).
The crazy road down the crater!

Whale watching

Posted on Friday, 24 January 2014, 22:59 by Alexandra

The weather today was the best ever! Every day so far, clouds have been hanging right over the mountains here and it has been windy. But today the mountains were completely free of clouds and the world’s second windiest harbor didn’t have any wind at all! It was a blue sky and it was just an awesome day here in Paradise.

The day didn’t start very well though. I woke up early because it was freezing cold in our room. I was half asleep and wasn’t really aware of what I was doing, but I took my hoodie and put my legs through the arms of the hoodie and pulled it up over my thighs. A very smart solution for a sleeping person. Then it got even colder so I removed it and put it on like normal, but then my legs were cold. So for tonight I’m taking both my hoodies out and am gonna put them on. I can’t believe how it can be so cold!

Anyway, after that we took the tour buses to the harbor in Ma’alaea, which is the second windiest harbor in the world. The tour was with Pacific Whale Foundation and was a very good tour. 2 hours out on the water under a blue sky and hot sun. The water under us was the bluest of blue I’ve ever seen. When I didn’t see any whales I just couldn’t stop looking down at the beautiful water. It was mesmerizing!

When it comes to the whales, the Humpback Whales, we saw a lot of them. They were seriously everywhere. Wherever you looked you could either see their backs breaching the water or see water blown out. And that you could see from very far away. They had a rule to not go closer to the whales than 100 yards except if they came up to the boat which they didn’t really do today. One time four of them came pretty close to the boat, but otherwise we watched them from afar. But they are big, like 45-50feet long so we saw them pretty good. The whole experience was just so amazing. We didn’t see any jumps close up but we did see some side fin splashes, a lot of tailfin splashes, and one head splash. They do that to get water in their mouths to look bigger and impress the females. So today we saw mostly males in competitive pods trying to win a females heart. We also saw a calf which probably wasn’t much older than just a few days, maybe weeks. It looked like a dolphin compared to the huge grownups.

It was incredible, but I so wish they had swam under the boat like they did the last Friday. That would have been soo awesome!!

After the whale watching we drove to Paia to hang around in the small and pretty city or just hang out at the beach for a couple of hours. I, Caroline and Sabrina (our new roomie) decided to spend those hours at the beach. The waves were really big today as well, and they were irregular. Fun for the surfers who could catch pretty much any wave.

At 4:30pm we drove back to the hostel where we had dinner, noodles in the microwave. It was good actually. At 7pm they opened a keg of beer and everyone was out in the common area playing drinking games, and just hanging out. I hardly drank anything, I tried Flip Cup and the Hands Game and I had a very nice time. And I’m so glad they have a quiet time after 10pm so I will still get some sleep :).

So, tomorrow’s the big volcano crater hike. It will probably kill me, but I really look forward to it. 12 miles is a lot though…

The baby humpback whale with its mom!

Beach day

Posted on Friday, 24 January 2014, 0:05 by Alexandra

Today didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to but it was a very nice day anyway. Because of the bad weather (It’s not that bad, it was raining one night and morning and has been a little extra windy, but it is still 25C if not more. The waves on the north side of the island was supposed to be like 40feet today!!) the snorkeling with turtles was cancelled today again. So instead of that we went to Big Beach which was a very beautiful beach with yellow sand and huge waves! It was possible to be in the water, but it was tricky. They were breaking like right on the beach so it was very hard getting in and out of the water. Out wasn’t too bad. We just had to run out very fast and then we could jump with the waves, but going in. Oh my god! I thought I was gonna make it when I went in right after a big wave, but the next one caught up to me. The backcurrent of the first wave was like a brick wall and I couldn’t move particularly much. So the next wave was at least as tall as I am and totally made me fall over and tumble around in the sandy water. I had sand, seriously everywhere after that!! But I survived and it was a workout even for just ten minutes.

That beach was by the way the same beach where the German au pair got bitten by a shark last summer and died. I wasn’t bitten and we didn’t see any sharks either. But we did see something else totally awesome! Whales! And today I learned that most of them here are Humpback whales. These were pretty close to shore and they were showing off. I think there were three of them and one of them did one of those super amazing whale jumps when they lift their upper body and then just falls down. And then they splashed with their side fins like all the time, blowing water and then one of them raised its tail and splashed it again and again and again. Like they do on SeaWorld. It was just so cool! I didn’t get a good picture of them but Caroline did get one awesome. I guess it doesn’t really matter though since we’re going to the whale watching tour tomorrow. And I can’t for everything in the world get a good translation of “whale watching” in Swedish. It’s disturbing…

The Big Beach was cut off from Little Beach by a small mountain and the view from that one was incredible. I wouldn’t say it was that good when you were looking on Little Beach, but Big beach was so beautiful. Well, Little Beach was too. But since that is a nude beach it wasn’t very nice to look at old men’s junks… Stephen Tyler from Aerosmith usually hangs out at that beach on Sundays, not nude. Maybe I will see him there on Sunday? He has a big house on that side of the island. I’m so not jealous…

Our next stop was the Kamaole Beach Park I. We played beach volleyball there for 1.5 hours. I didn’t enjoy it so much, but I missed it (I know, almost two weeks since I played!) so I felt that I had to. I really don’t like it to play more than 2 people on one side. Three is fine, but six? Oh no. But I got complemented on my serve which was awesome today. Better than everyone else’s, even the guys!

After that we had our last stop, Haui’s Life’s a Beach. It’s a restaurant and bar. I was starving and ordered a burger with ranch dressing and fried onion rings. And to that two Mai Tais. They were $2.50 each.

On the way home the girl in the front seat was so drunk. She was embarrassing herself with dancing and screaming along with the horrible songs she played on the iPhone’s AUX. Good thing it wasn’t a very long ride.

Back at the hostel I and Caroline tried the hot tub for the first time. It was warm and after 45minutes we were burning up and had to take cold showers. I will definitely go in that one after the 12 mile volcano hike on Saturday.

Our Canadian roomie left today and we got a new one. A German girl one year older than me. The funny thing about it, she came from San Diego where she’s been studying for the past six months. And the even funnier thing is that she came in from Waikiki, Oahu today and had spent 10 days on HI Waikiki where we also stayed! She arrived there on the 14^th and we on the 15^th. Haha! What a small world! She is very nice and is going to the whale watching tomorrow. I’m so excited about it, and then the Haleakala volcano hike on Saturday, beach day on Sunday and an amazing hike on Monday. And then of course Big Island. I just read on yelp.com that the black sand beach we are going to there have turtles basking on the sand. I really really want to see turtles up close again! Either snorkeling with them or seeing them on the beach.

Big Beach. Little Beach. Big waves! Humpback whales! Kamaole Beach Park I was a very nice beach with fine sand. But I spent the 1.5 hours playing beach volleyball instead. Even if I hate playing more than 2 people on each side. I had some fun though, and it was fun when everyone was so surprised a girl could have such a great serve as I had today (I usually dont, but today it was awesome for some reason)

Lahaina

Posted on Wednesday, 22 January 2014, 22:56 by Alexandra

We didn’t do the tour today. We were on the waiting list but since it was pouring down this whole morning we didn’t think snorkeling would be such a good idea so we just took the bus by ourselves to Lahaina to walk around. The tour was partly in that city too. So we would rather go by ourselves so we could put our name first on the list for the real turtle snorkeling tomorrow. It was very frustrating with the buses again. We were told that bus 20 went straight from outside the hostel to Lahaina so we sat there and waited for an hour before we realized that probably wasn’t true. So we took the normal bus to the big shopping mall and from there the 20 went. It took us three hours to get to Lahaina. So stupid!

When we came there it was really windy. But the city was so pretty! It was the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii but then King Kamehameha III moved it to Honolulu in the middle of the 19^th century. We walked around, looking in souvenir shops. I bought my refrigerator magnet and I couldn’t resist buying another bracelet. It said it was Cat’s Eye Fortune Bracelet/Anklets. Each color represented different things. I chose the light blue because it was the prettiest one and it will bring me romance apperantly.

We walked along a nice beach where big houses had the beach as backyard. Those houses must cost millions of dollars! I wouldn’t mind living there! At the end of the beach were a Buddhist temple and this morning when I were waiting for the bus I read in a Maui brochure that out there was the biggest Buddah statue outside Asia. And we actually saw it and remembered the text when we saw it.

On the way back we stopped at Hard Rock Café Maui to have dinner. We got a seat right next to the glassless windows with a beautiful view over the ocean and sunset. We shared the local burger which was so good! Pineapple chunks, teriyaki sauce and pulled pork. First time I ever tried that. It was good! For dessert we stopped by a Gelato place. I had pineapple and it was really good. Tasted like real pineapple. I’ve never had that before either, so two new things I’ve tried today again. In the gift store at HRC I bought a shotglass and a t-shirt. It was expensive, but I really wanted that t-shirt. I mean, how many people in the world have a Hard Rock Café Maui t-shirt?

On the long way back to the hostel we froze. We had our towels wrapped around us and we will probably sleep with hoodies or at least an extra blanket or something. It was really cold tonight! Probably that arctic chills going over the mainland right now… So it will probably be really cold, maybe even snow, when we are doing the volcano hike at 10,000 feet height on Saturday.

When we got back to the hostel we asked one of our roomies about the trip today (we actually saw the vans in Lahaina earlier and our guide from yesterday recognized us and waved when we were crossing the street). And the wind and waves were making the water all foggy (like sand you can’t see through), so they didn’t do any snorkeling and she was disappointed. So I’m glad I didn’t go. I and Caroline had a nice time together in Lahaina without any stress on when to get to the van.

I don’t know what happened over night, if it was all the moisture that came with the rain or what (apperantly there was a big storm over the whole of Maui last night), but when I woke up I had so many mosquito bites! Especially on my legs. And one big on one of my knuckles. Mosquitos love me and I hate them! I hope they don’t carry any deceases with them.

I really hope the water has calmed down tomorrow so I can see some turtles! And I will get a tiny sleep-in because the tour doesn’t leave until 10:30 am. Awesome!

This river was completely dry yesterday! This is what a big part of Maui looks like. It’s just desolate… Is it my 10th visit maybe? 🙂