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

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.

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.

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)

Road to Hana

Posted on Tuesday, 21 January 2014, 23:56 by Alexandra

Wow! What a day!! I take back every bad thought I had about Maui yesterday. I am so glad we came to this hostel on a Monday around noon so we could sign up for this tour, it was amazing!! We saw lava rocks, turquoise water, black sand beach, red sand beach, bamboo forest, waterfalls, whales and swam in a freshwater cave. I will explain everything better under these headlines.

B was the Keanae Peninsula as well.

HANA HIGHWAY

This road was seriously ridiculous! You can compare it to Pacific Coast Highway 1 in California between Los Angeles and San Francisco. But this was crazier! It was sick! I just read online that it is 60 miles of scenic coastal road. It is extremely curvy and has around 620 curves and 59 bridges! I don’t get carsick but I was close today. I was very grateful that I didn’t have to drive that road and could enjoy the beautiful view. Bamboo were growing next to the road, palm trees, banana trees, beautiful red flowers. Big mountains on one side and the blue ocean on the other. It was amazing! On the way back we saw a lot of cats on the road. Someone in the van said that there are at least on cat per person on Maui. I should probably move there. The Seven Sacred Pools are part of Haleakala State Park, but we only stopped with the can for a few seconds to look at it.

KAENAE PENINSULA

Our first stop was for banana bread at a famous place called Aunty Sandy’s Banana Bread. And it was delicious, just out of the oven and so moist! I and Caroline shared a loaf and that was a perfect breakfast since the pancake batter were out when we wanted to eat breakfast. One minute away from that place was such a beautiful peninsula with a lot of lava rocks and turquoise water. The contrast was so amazingly beautiful!! And the waves were big and white clouds of water splashed everywhere all the time. It was breathtaking!

WAI’ANAPANAPA STATE PARK

The second stop was also completely taken out of a photoshopped picture of paradise. There were two parts of this stop and the first one for our van (two vans with like 12 people in each) was the black sand beach! I’ve never seen that and I was impressed by how black it actually was! The colors at this place was as beautiful and I just couldn’t believe what I saw. The black sand and lava rocks, the same awesome turquoise water and the green vegetation on the black lava rocks. I think the pictures speak for themselves! But as you all know, it is always more beautiful in real life and this place was truly amazing!

The second part of the stop was the Wai’anapanapa cave. I knew about it and had mentally prepared me for the experience. Because I knew I would regret it so bad if I chickened out. The cave is a freshwater cave you can swim through. I thought we were gonna have to swim underwater and that was what freaked me out a little bit. Swimming under water in a cave… Not exactly something safe. But apparently the water levels have been really low the last couple of months so that wasn’t necessary. Puuh! BUT, it was still scary when our guide (who btw looked like the boy’s first grade teacher) told us that once we jumped through the little hole in the cave, there was no going back. Shit! I don’t like that sentence. But I actually wasn’t afraid and I didn’t have any second thoughts at all. I knew I wanted to do it and so many other people have done it so why not me? I felt a bit like Tris in the Divergent book when she at the Dauntless initiation had to jump off a roof into a black hole in the ground. I actually went first in the black hole in the cave.

Anyway, so here’s how the cave worked. First we had to jump down in to the pool. The water was cool, not too cold, maybe a little bit colder than the ocean in San Diego. The jump wasn’t high, it was like 1.5m maybe? Probably not even that. When we all were in the crystal clear water the guide and a guy went before me into a small tunnel. When I came in the second “room” of the cave the guide was pointing her flashlight at a tiny, tiny hole. It was a little jump of a few decimeters and below it was another room with a lower level of water and it was pitch dark in there. Since the second “room” were so small we had to go through the hole right away and I volunteered to go first. Crazy me! But I felt brave. In there I have to admit that I panicked a little. I was all alone in a black water cave, I had no idea how big it was, how low the ceiling was, what else could have been there in the dark with me. It wasn’t real bad, but it was scary. So I clung to the wall like a curled up baby and hung there until everyone was in the third “room”. My fingers hurt really bad after holding on to the lava rocks but I didn’t want to tramp water in there, it was scary. When we all were in there the guide swam first into an even smaller tunnel where I was afraid of hitting my head in the ceiling. I couldn’t see anything and I tried touching the wall all the time with my hand, but I had to swim at the same time. It wasn’t a very long tunnel, maybe 4m? And then we were done with the water. One last part before we could be out in the sun again. We had to climb out of that cave! And that was the scary part for real. The black cave was scary fun, I knew there weren’t any dangers there. But climbing up on a wet and sharp lava rock wall was scary. I tried going after the guide (she had the flashlight on the wall, but it didn’t reach all the way down to the water where we were) but I seriously couldn’t find anywhere to grasp. So I got back in the water and let another girl go ahead of me. And then I tried again. And, oh my god, I was so afraid of losing my grip and fall backwards and hit my head in the wall and probably die. I didn’t, but I was really scared and I scraped the front of my lower leg a little bit. When I got up and was safe my heart was trying to pound itself out of my chest and I was shaking. Not because of the cold water, but because of the adrenaline kick I had! That experience was the best thing ever. Such a rush and I felt so alive!! The rest of the way up to the paved road was very slippery so the danger wasn’t over, but I climbed like a monkey, holding on to roots and did it. WOW!

That’s me jumping in the cool freshwater. It was a little bit less than 2m deep.

There is a legend behind this cave and they say that a Hawaiian princess ran away from her cruel husband and hid in that cave. Her servant used a feather Kahili (a symbol of royalty) to fan the princess and the reflection in the water made the husband notice them and he killed the princess, coloring the cave all red. At certain times during the year the cave fills up with tiny red shrimp and some say it is a reminder of the blood of that princess.

Just when we got in the van to leave we spotted whales breaching pretty close to the beach so we watched them for a little while. They were way closer than the ones in San Diego. And on Friday I will see them even closer, like right next to the boat.

BRADDAH HUTTS BBQ GRILL ISLAND STYLE

The third stop was lunch. Right when I was about to order they ran out of fish tacos and that was a real bummer, I’ve heard those are really good. So I took the BBQ chicken instead and that was probably the best barbecued chicken I’ve ever had. So amazing!!

HALEAKALA STATE PARK / PIPIWAI TRAIL (WAIMOKU FALLS)

Our fourth stop was the Haleakala State Park, where the big volcano crater is. But we went to another part of the park to do a hike in a bamboo forest and look at waterfalls. It was a pretty easy hike, two miles to the big waterfall and two miles back. It took us around 2 hours in total. In the beginning I was really afraid that my calves were gonna hurt and they did when we went up. But then it flattened out and the trail was actually like a real road with planks laid out. It was perfect. In the beginning of the hike there was a huuuge banyan tree! Those trees are so cool, with their trunks going in all directions and growing how they like.

The bamboo forest later on was pretty awesome! They were so high, so it was dark in there. We saw pools and tiny waterfalls on the way and it was just a very nice hike. At the end of the hike was Waimoku Falls which was a skinny but tall waterfall. It has a drop of about 400 feet (I don’t know how much that is in meters and I’m too tired to look it up, but it was pretty tall). The flow wasn’t that good, I think it was a while ago it rained here. Our guide said that the trail normally was all muddy but today it was really dry. It was like a giant wall there with a tiny pool where the water collected. It was dripping all along the wall and it was the same colors ad before. Black rock and green lush. It was really beautiful!

Tiny Caroline among the bamboo!Waimoku falls at the end of Pipiwai Trail.

KAIHALULU RED SAND BEACH

The last stop was a red sand beach and it was also super cool! Now I’ve seen white, black (pink on Crete in Greece) and red beaches. On Big Island we will see a green one! It wasn’t just the color of the sand that was cool, it was a lot of lava rocks right outside the beach making like a pool in the small bay. The walls around the beach were massive. It probably would have been even more beautiful there if the sun would have been a little higher in the sky. It was just about to set behind the mountain.

When we started our journey I learned why I thought Maui was so boring. There are a lot of sugar cane fields here and this part of the island has flat ground and therefore a lot of fields. It looks really boring. My roommates by the way, are nice. Except Caroline, I have a 22 year old Canadian girl and an older woman from New York. She talks a lot but she is nice. AND, I forgot to write something yesterday. When we were at the mall a guy came up to us and asked us if we were from Sweden. He said we looked really Swedish with our blond hair and blue eyes. Haha!

I think that was all today. It was an eventful day. I’m tired but had such an awesome time! When we got back to the hostel at 8:30pm the list for tomorrow’s tour was already full, but we wrote our name on the waiting list and are either hoping for dropouts or an extra car so we can go to Lahaina and snorkel with turtles at Black Rock! Otherwise we will take the bus to Lahaina. Black Rock is further away so we will probably just hang out at the old Hawaiian capital and then eat at hard Rock Café.

Aloha, Maui!

Posted on Monday, 20 January 2014, 22:21 by Alexandra

So far I’m not impressed to be honest. I was taken aback when we arrived at the hostel, it wasn’t as nice as the one on Oahu. The room was super tiny, but the common area was pretty nice. They even have a Jacuzzi here!

The flight here from Honolulu were about 30min and the plane barely even flattened out up in the air before going down again. It was nice! I really like Hawaiian Airlines, the service is awesome! Even with this short flight, we got a complimentary tropical juice. We got our baggage’s very fast and booked a shuttle right away and within minutes we were on the shuttle to the hostel. 40 minutes after we landed we were checking in and took the last two spots for the “Road to Hana” tour tomorrow. Now the waiting list for the trip is so long. We got lucky! And we had almost a whole day here on maui to do whatever we wanted. I almost wish we didn’t. We wanted to go to the beach, it didn’t matter which one. I just wanted to enjoy the beautiful weather. Over the mountain there were a lot of dark clouds, but over the coast it was beautiful. And it was warmer here than on Oahu. Maybe 85F? I’m still not very good at temperatures. So we kinda got directions but it didn’t help. We got off the first bus to early and had to wait another hour for the next one. But we did a little snack shopping during that time. I bought something called Mochii. It is something baked with sweetened rice flour and it has a very weird and gooey/sticky/chewy consistency. I’m not sure I liked it. It didn’t taste bad, it was just weird. I also tried M&M Coconut for the first time and I loved it. And the third and last new thing I tried was apple banana. It looks like a banana, but isn’t as sweet and taste a little like apple I guess. We didn’t have to wait too long at the big shopping mall for the next bus that took us to Kihei. I didn’t like that beach. I might have liked it better if we got off the bus one or two stops earlier. But I didn’t complain, I just wanted to hear the waves crashing against the beach and feel the sun warm my body. And I did. I just imagined myself on Lanikai Beach instead. The palm trees there had coconuts in them.

We left the beach at 4:30pm so we had time to do some grocery shopping before going back to the hostel to shower and eat dinner and update blogs and post pictures on Facebook. I did all that except eat dinner. For some reason I wasn’t hungry at all so I just ate a small bag of Jelly Belly and a roll of Rolo. I’m gonna miss the American candy. The showers are shared with everyone here on this hostel, both girls and boys which is not so fun. But I managed to take a shower anyway without any awkward encounters.

I’m tired tonight so instead of socializing outside I’m just sitting in the room and will go to sleep as soon as possible. And besides, everyone out there is drinking and screaming like crazy. It’s gonna be a long day tomorrow. Free pancakes for breakfast at 8am and 8:30am the tour buses leave. I’m not sure what to expect, but I am really excited!! I just hope that we are gonna be able to do all the tours (otherwise we’re gonna be stuck at the hostel for a day…) because the new sign-up papers don’t come up until the tour of the day has left. I think this Road to Hana is the most popular, and probably the volcano hike too on Saturday. Maybe we could ask someone who’s not going to sign us up :).

Okay, time to go to bed, I’m seeing double…

Banana Bungalow Maui Hostel is the green building on the right in this picture. Mochii. From the right angle, the beach we went to today actually looked okay!

Roadtrip in a convertible

Posted on Sunday, 19 January 2014, 23:02 by Alexandra

Today was all about doing a roadtrip around big parts of the island of Oahu since this was our last day here. And I have to admit that the car made a big part about it better. For $11 extra we got a convertible Chrysler!! It was so awesome! The guy who helped us got us a discount so we pretty much got the GPS for free, and the upgrade was $20 normally. Maybe it’s good to be blonde and blue eyed.

#1 Our first stop was Matsumoto’s Shave Ice. It is Oahu’s most popular shave ice place. Shave ice is just ice in snow form with flavored juice poured over it. Really good actually and it looked cool. Mine with mango, pineapple and watermelon flavors looked like a rainbow.

#2 Our second stop was Turtle Bay. I got fooled by the name of the place. I thought that was a beach where turtles always lay in the sand, but no. It was a big resort and a cute little bay. It wasn’t as nice with the bunch of grey clouds completely covering the sky and I was disappointed when I only saw some tourist lying on sunbeds.

#3 Third stop was Mokoli’I, also called the Chinaman’s Hat because it looks like an old Chinese worker’s hat. The park, Kauloa Regional Park was so beautiful. The beach was almost empty and the mountains were right behind it and if it weren’t for the clouds it would have been even more perfect. We tried taking a few funny pictures with the hat and then Caroline drove us to our next stop. And while she was driving it started raining. Quite a lot too. So we had to pull the roof back in the car. Too bad. But good too, because my hair got so messy after driving 70mph on the highway.

#4 The fourth stop was supposed to be for the rest of the day but the bad weather caught up to us and we had only 20 minutes before the cold wind and rain came. The stop was at Hawaii’s most beautiful beach, Lanikai. It was indeed beautiful. Not exactly as the pictures on google, but we might have been at another spot on the beach than the photographers on google. The sand there was the finest sand I’ve ever seen. It was like a powder. I wish Waikiki Beach could have been that amazing! We took a few pictures and started towards our last stop on our little roadtrip.

#5 Nu’uanu Pali Lookout. Our last stop for the day. From up there you’re supposed to see the northeast coast of Oahu and we did. At least part of it. Because of the bad weather there were a lot of fog. But we could see the ocean, not all the way to Chinaman’s Hat, but we could see Valley of Temples and the city (don’t know which one) down there. I read online that it was supposed to be super windy up there, like you literally could be blown away. But it wasn’t particularly windy at all. It was chilly because of the drizzle of rain. The story about that place goes like this. To try if a person was a liar, they threw them down the side of the mountain and if the wind carried them upward to save them, that meant that they were honest. Otherwise they were liars and deserved to die.

It was an Alaskan older couple who told us the story after they so kindly helped us change one of the tired on our car. This is the really stupid part of the day. When we started driving we heard a noise. We went out of the car as soon as we got the chance to take a look at the tires but couldn’t see anything at all. So we continued to drive for like 6h. Still a noise and a tire pressure warning sign lighted. I know that’s common among rental cars so I thought it was no biggie. But it was. When we were parked at Pali Lookout to wait for the rain to ease a couple of Japanese women came up to us and told us that one of our back tires were completely flat. We got help from the super nice Alaskan couple and we got the tire change within 15 minutes. We saw that there was a big nail stuck in the tire. Now the noise made sense. But it wasn’t particularly nice of the rental place to give us a car with a ticking flat-tire-bomb. So when we returned the car we asked for some money back, and we got $36 back without any questions.

At 3:30pm we drove back to Waikiki to return the car. An hour later when we were in the hostel the lobby was full of policemen. I have no idea what happened and I didn’t want to stay and find out. I was hungry so we went to Burger King to bring it to the beach and eat it while waiting for the sunset and Vasoula (she is the German girl living in my neighborhood in San Diego). She found out this morning her hostfamily’s secret destination. It could have been Costa Rica, Mexico or Hawaii. So after the last sunset on Oahu we met up and talked on the beach for a couple of hours. So weird, but nice, seeing her here on Hawaii!

Back to the hostel, took a quick shower, packed everything and went through all the pictures from today so I could upload them to my blog. Now I’m done and so tired! I will fall asleep as soon as my head hit the very flat pillow.

Tomorrow a new island waits! Maui!! I really look forward to it :). I’m guessing it will be completely different from Oahu.

Matsumoto’s Shave Ice. They had so many flavors I didn’t even read them all, I just took three of my absolute favorite tropical flavors, and it turned out like a rainbow. Big waves on the North Shore! Turtle Bay. Chinaman’s Hat. Kualoa Regional Park. Beautiful scenery while driving (Caroline was the photographer). Waimea Bay Beach Park. Way out in the water on the huge waves some surfers did what they do best. Lanikai Beach. Powder sand. Nu’uanu Pali Lookout. On my right side is Valley of Temples and on my left side is a city (don’t know which one) and farther to the left is Chinaman’s Hat supposed to be. Sunset on Waikiki Beach. A small reunon with Vasoula in front of Duke Kahanamoku! 🙂

Pearl Harbor

Posted on Saturday, 18 January 2014, 0:13 by Alexandra

My third day on Oahu is over. This morning we took one of those buses for more than 1.5h to Pearl Harbor National Park. When we studied WWII in school the focus was mostly on what happened in Europe and I didn’t even pay that much attention. It just didn’t interest me. I wasn’t super excited about Pearl Harbor. But I will probably only be on Oahu once, and Pearl Harbor is a pretty big deal here. And it was interesting to learn it from the Americans point of view. I didn’t really understand why Japan attacked the Americans like that. It had something to do with China and Japans previous invasions and America who didn’t want to sell oil to Japan anymore and Japan who wanted to vanquish the American fleet. They didn’t really explain that in the movie we saw. I should probably google it. There were two exhibitions, “Road to War” and “Attack”. We only had like 1h before the USS Arizona Memorial tour so I spent most of the time in “Attack”, learning about those 2 hours when Japan surprised the Americans and killed 2400 people. It was interesting and the Japanese were smart. They had specially engineered torpedo’s that could go in the shallow water of the harbor. They had designed bombs that could penetrate the battleships and they attacked from different directions so all the battleship sunk. All the American aircrafts were blown to pieces too. 64 Japanese died, 9 airplanes out of several hundred crashed. They really knew what they were doing. December 7^th 1941 was the day USA joined the war.

I almost wished we could have stayed longer so I could learn more about “Road to War”, but I would rather stay longer at the beach. So after the short boat trip out to USS Arizona Memorial (it was like a white cube above the sunken battleship) and back, we took the bus back to Waikiki.

Caroline took a surf lesson for an hour and Jair rented his own surfboard for several hours to try. When he was out there he told us that he saw three turtles swim by!! I am so jealous! The waves were so tiny, so I didn’t want to spend money on a surfboard rental because I would get so frustrated when I wouldn’t be able to get speed enough to catch a wave. And, when I got in the water (it was warmer today, probably 28C) I realized the whole bottom was full of sharp rocks. And it was shallow, so if you fall you will most likely fall on sharp rocks. I decided to rent a Stand Up Paddling Board instead, but I fell asleep at the beach so I will do it tomorrow instead.

We stayed at the beach and watched the sunset. It was so beautiful! I took a lot of pictures but it doesn’t give the real thing justice.

Then we waited for the hula dancers that were supposed to dance at the beach in the sunset. But they never showed up so we went to Subway and bought dinner to eat at the beach while watching tonight’s firework from Hilton Hawaii Village. The funny thing is that the firework was behind the tall buildings so we didn’t see anything. Too bad! The rest of the evening was spent in an ABC Store. There are millions of souvenir shops here but they are all the same. There is like one ABC store on each block here, it’s ridiculous. But anyway, both of me and Caroline bought so many souvenirs to our loved ones and a little to ourselves too of course. I bought a new bracelet and a tiki statue. I’m not gonna write about the other stuff, in case someone happens to read.

A quick shower back at the hostel and tonight I’ve just been going through pictures, and a little bit of tiny things. I should go to bed, because tomorrow I have to be ready at 7:30 so we can do the Diamond Head hike before it gets too hot. I’m really excited about our first hike :).

Caroline’s system camera is slightly better than my HTC One phone…

Hanauma Bay

Posted on Thursday, 16 January 2014, 23:29 by Alexandra

This day has been so amazingly fantastic! Hawaii is paradise. I, Caroline and Jair spent the day at Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve with is a very pretty lagoon on the east side of Oahu. You have to pay an entry fee of $7.50 and then watch a movie about how to behave around the reef that’s in there. Look but not touch and don’t feed the animals pretty much.

We took the bus out there and it went really smoothly. 30 minutes and the AC was perfect in the very warm morning. $2.50 for every ride out here and you can go wherever you want to on the island.

When we got to the bay we were awestruck. My jaw was at my knees. It was sooo beautiful!! Just imagine those big mountains from the Jurassic Park movies, the ones formed from lava. They were circling the turquoise water and you could clearly see where there were sand bottom and reef. A lot of palm trees and mongooses running around on the grass next to the sand. Mongooses are very common here apparently. They are really cute. I tried getting a photo of them, but they were fast.

Anyway, we stood up on the side of the lagoon and took a lot of pictures and then walked down the steep hill into the lagoon. The sand wasn’t perfect, it was kinda rough actually. So my soles under my feet hurt now. But it’s okay, we’re not gonna do a hike until Saturday.

We did a lot of snorkeling but after the Red Sea in Egypt I wasn’t impressed. There were a few cool fishes. I recognized them all from Egypt and they are pretty. But the reef just looked dull and grey. I bought an underwater camera yesterday though so we took a few pictures today and will save the rest of them for Maui when we are gonna go snorkeling with turtles!

When we weren’t in the 80F water we just hung out at the beach. It was exhausting snorkeling without fins so I think I actually fell asleep a few times. I had sunscreen with factor 70 and I only got burned in my face where I forgot to reapply it a second time. And I think I got a lot more tan after today. I’m not gonna be recognizable when I go back to Sweden if it continues like this.

The sun disappeared behind the mountain at like 4:30pm so that’s when we went back to Waikiki to shower and get ready for dinner. We went to Tiki’s Grill and Bar where Crystal (Chad’s cousin) works. I had coconut shrimp and it was really good. It was a very tiny portion, so we decided to have ice cream at Cold Stones after. Marshmallow ice cream with Heath bar as a mix-in was pretty good!

We sat on a bench by the beach while eating our dessert and then went back to the hostel to get some sleep. It’s exhausting snorkeling and lying in the sun a whole day!

On tomorrow’s agenda is Pearl Harbor, Honolulu downtown and surfing at Waikiki Beach and later fireworks at the same beach.

80F (26C) in the water isn’t all wrong :). The air temperature was the same! On the way back to the hostel after our dinner we saw Boo Boo the Amazing Guinea Pig. I wonder how that guy made the guinea pig so obedient.