The weirdest of dreams

Posted on Saturday, 1 February 2014, 21:45 by Alexandra

I don’t have particuraly many dreams nowadays, but last night I had the craziest ever.

I was on Hawaii and we didn’t have insurance on the rental car. We were driving along a road when all of a sudden it just starts shaking and the road collapses. We are stuck with the car on a peninsula and we need to return it the day after. I was so afraid that we would have to pay a fortune to get it towed from there. We could safely get to the main land, but the car was stuck out there.

The second part of the dream was also here on the island. And I and Caroline were in a room with ocean water. I don’t know if it was some kind of test, but we had a boogie board each and in the water came everything you can imagine trying to kill us. First came a super fast red jellyfish, then the Portugeese Jellyfish that is super poisonous. After that we wrestled with big octopi and a lot of other weird animals. I managed to get out of the water where someone was watching us. I talked to that person and that person explained to me that this year’s VIRUS had a Giant Octupus as their animal. And then I told them that my year we had a Zebra and that person answered that VIRUS is just getting worse. Everybody knows that “it was better before!”. VIRUS is my union/group of volunteers at my university. We arranged sport activities and partied a lot. But we never had any animals.

Strange dream! And the worst part about it was that it felt so real and I was panicked when I woke up!

2014-02-01, 08:28

Roadtrip on Big Island (31jan)

Posted on Saturday, 1 February 2014, 21:43 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.

I am so broke right now, and that is thanks to Enterprise. The world’s worst car rental company. Today was all about driving around the island seeing other things than the hotel and Kailua-Kona. But it took the rest of my money just to rent the car because stupid Enterprise wanted $300 in deposit! And after the $80 for the car I only had like $100 left… In California and on Oahu they only wanted $200. So now I can’t afford my second bag to Sweden. I asked mom to transfer some money and I really hope I will get them before my flight departs on Monday morning (that is evening time in Sweden, so it should be okay, otherwise I’m totally screwed!).

After that our day just got better. We didn’t take any insurance because the a******* at Enterprise didn’t ask about it and then just acted like b****** when they gave us the car. So I drove the whole day, and it was a long day.

Ka Lae, South Point

Our first stop was at the most southern point in the United States, Ka Lae. Out there one could jump from a cliff right down in the crystal clear water. A lot of fish were swimming right there and I so wanted to do it! I really wanted to, but we didn’t really have the time since we had a lot of stops to do today. It was only 35 feet (10 meters). I probably would have survived! If I ever get the chance to cliff jump again, I will totally do it! I’m so bummed I didn’t do it, there were no rocks, just a straight cliff and really deep water. And it was hot, like 85F, so it would have been perfect with a dip in the ocean. There was also a blowhole, which is kinda like an underground cave where the water goes in and “blows” up through the ground. When the waves come in the level in the hole rises and stupid people can jump in. Right before we came there was a guy jumping in. Cliff jumping is one thing, but blowhole jumping is just stupid…

This is what I call red sand! The blowhole. I so wish this was me!Hanging loose at the most southern point in the United States of America!

Green sand beach

Our next stop was right around the corner, Papakolea Beach/Mahana Bay/the green sand beach. To get to the beach we had to park the car and then do a ridiculous hike. It probably would have taken us 1.5 hours. There are people with pickup trucks there who work as shuttle. $15 roundtrip and they drive you all the way and then wait for you to take your pictures. The ride was bumpy and dusty though. I never get carsick, but today I did and it took me several hours after to get rid of the feeling. It took 30 minutes one way. And now to the description of the beach! It isn’t as green as leaves on a tree, but it is definitely green. The closer you look the more green you see. So the sand is tiny bits of crystal. Most of them are green, some gold, some black. It was so cool!

Black sand beach and turtles

Our third stop was at a black sand beach and it was way more impressive than the one on Maui. First, this was blacker! It was so dark and Nina (a girl from Maui whom we met later tonight) told me that the darker the lava rock is, the newer it is. Second, it was surrounded by palm trees (and you all know how much I love those!) and I just love the color combination of black lava rock and green. Third, and the best, was that there were turtles basking in the sun!! We saw five of them in total and they were hard to see, they were dark, the sand was dark and they totally look like rocks. I took like another million pictures of the Honu, the Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle and I will probably have a new profile picture on Facebook as soon as I get the pictures from Caroline’s camera.

This was a very beautiful beach. Four turtles, a fifth out in the water and the sixth was behind me!

Kilauea, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

This roadtrip was so easy. We didn’t need a GPS because everything was accessed from the HWY 11. Our last stop was at the Volcanoes National Park. Kilauea is the most active of the islands five volcanoes but it is sleeping right now. The biggest is the Mauna Loa which is located just 20 miles north. There isn’t any lava in the Halema’uma’u crater, which is located in the Kilauea caldera. I had to google what the difference between crater and caldera is, and I think I understand it. A caldera is what’s left when landmasses collapse after a volcanic eruption. And the crater is where the lava is I guess. Anyway, according to Wikipedia (I know, I shouldn’t look up information there, but it’s so easy), who refers to Hawaii Volcano Observatory, says there still is lava down there, like 70-150 meters below the crater floor. And someone at Banana Bungalow told me that the lava hasn’t been visible for a while. So we didn’t see anything, but we did see steam though!

The landscape changes so much here on Big Island. One part is full of lava rocks/cliffs, one part is overgrowing rainforest, one part looks like African savannah, one part looks like forests in Germany and some part look like northern Sweden. Really cool :).

Okay, that volcano has a road on the rim, called the Crater Rim Drive, so we could drive to all the places. Our first stop up there was the Lava tube with Nahuku which means stalactites. It was like any other tunnel/cave I’ve been in. It was moist, a lot of water dripping and since it was a tourist attraction it had lights. It wasn’t too long, just a few hundred meters. When we came out of it we walked through a rainforest but it wasn’t as cool as in the movies. But it was cool with the super big ferns. I felt like a little ant walking under them.

Our second stop was Pu’u Pua’i. It is a big pile of solidified lava covering part of the Crater Rim Drive so it’s not possible driving all the way around. It got covered in 1959 during the 37-day eruption in Nov-Dec. During that eruption the Kilauea volcano made a 580 meter high lava fountain! It’s so crazy it’s hard to believe. It’s also very fascinating googling and reading on the signs about all these things.

Our third stop in the National Park was the steam vents. It was a place among the drive with simply explained, a lot of steam coming out of the ground. It was really cool, but it smelled like a rotten egg fart out there. And it was hot. I got burned twice on my legs when the wind took the steam in my direction.

Our fourth and last stop along the drive was the Jaggar Museum and the Hawaii Volcano Observatory. There we learned that this volcano only was 4000 feet. It is a little confusing what we actually saw. Well, what we saw was a big desolate area (Kilauea caldera) with a steaming crater (Halema’uma’u). That crater was a big lake of lava until 1924 when it exploded and doubled the size of the crater. So no lava today but that was probably good. What if there would have been an eruption and I would have been stuck on Hawaii? Oh no! Horrible thought :).

I drove all the way back to Kailua-Kona and stopped at Pineapple Park hostel where Nina from Banana Bungalow on Maui stayed. We picked her and three of her guy friends up and drove to a nice burger restaurant. It was a real restaurant with good burgers! On the way back to the hotel I got a little lost, no, not lost, but I took an involuntarily detour which resulted in a funny sign which said: Entering Banana Virus Quarantine Area. Haha! I didn’t enter though, I found the right way back to HWY 11. I wonder what was going on there!

Back at the hotel I booked my shuttle for Sunday and now I only have like 400SEK, which isn’t even $100. Stupid Enterprise… And then I grabbed my computer and spent a few hours in the bar updating my blog. I couldn’t post this though because I didn’t have all the photos. And I think my readers will have plenty to read anyway.

It was awesome taking a long shower and to get rid of the dust layer. And then I couldn’t stop reading about volcanoes on Wikipedia and now it’s almost 2am… I’m on vacation though, so it’s fine!

This day turned out to be really nice, even if I’m moneyless. Tomorrow’s our last day on Hawaii and we are just gonna relax by the pool, working on our tan one last time. And since the Wi-Fi at the bar (which is right next to the pool) is working I will probably continue to read about volcanoes. I don’t know the history about Haleakala on Maui yet :).

2014-02-01, 01:41

Kona Pier Beach (30jan)

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

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!