This Sunday marked four weeks in Hawaii for me already! As always, I’m keeping it busy, which is why I’m a little late with this post. Better late than never
First off, Stefaniya and I went on a hike to Kīholo Bay. On our way there we met a man (Brad?), who guided our attention to the pond he was sitting next to. It’s called Queens Bath (Keanalele Waterhole) and it used to be where the Queen would take baths. It was very cool, because it was cave-like in an old lava tube and you could swim through a rocky tunnel to an opening. Unfortunately only Stefaniya has pictures of that on her disposable camera.
After a quick dip in the chilly water we continued our journey towards Kīholo Bay. We had both heard great things and it is still so interesting to me to see beaches with solidified lava. There were also supposed to be sea turtles, but we only saw two. They were very cute, though, kind of struggling in the waves.
I also tried proper boogie boarding on good waves and it’s so much fun. Hāpuna beach is perfect for that sort of thing and even though it’s a little crowded, I think it adds to the comradery. A man saw I was struggling to find the right moment to hop on a wave, so he helped out by very loudly yelling “go!” at the right time. A couple of times I caught really good waves and made it all the way to the sand.
Now starts the Hawai’ian culture appreciation portion. It somehow happened, that I was exposed to a lot of traditional Hawai’ian things on consecutive days and I loved it. First off I finally made it to the luau show, which is traditionally a celebration around feasting on traditional cuisine and entertainment, including hula and Hawai’ian music.
The show I went to was just that – a show, no food, but I didn’t mind at all, because I feel like that is the more interesting part. I loved how through dance and song they told stories about ancient Hawai’ians and their gods. They had variety as well – besides regular hula, a guy performed with fire and they even taught kids how to hula. It was all so much fun.
I think I’ve mentioned before that Līlia (full name Līlialanaikawaiola) goes to a Hawai’ian school and they had a big event, where all the Ke Kula ‘o Nāwahīokalani’ōpu’u schools came together and did performances. Kids sang in Hawai’ian, danced hula and chanted. There was a small market, where they sold food, jewelry, and other Hawai’ian handcraft.
Malle took me around campus and explained, that they grow everything themselves. There were coffee and mango trees, fruits and vegetables that I hadn’t even heard of, and some pretty big pigs as well. All the classes are in Hawai’ian and the whole point is to keep Hawai’ian culture alive.
For lunch we had kālua pua’a (pulled pork) with rice, taro (a purple sweet potato) and haupia (a coconut milk based dessert). As I knew our next stop would be Mauna Kea (the mountain) I also bought some triangular earrings to represent the three big mountains – Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa and Hualālai.
There is a big fight going on about Mauna Kea right now, because some governments want to build new big telescopes at the top, but for the Hawai’ian people it is holy land. For them it is unacceptable that they would destroy the natural state of the mountaintop to make room for buildings, so people are literally camped out, living in tents, at the summit to keep the machines from going up.
The mountaintop was very windy, but we had snow ball fights, made snow angels, people were using boogie boards as sleds and we even found this cute snowman. Quite a few cars were shoveling snow into the back of their cars to take it down with them and potentially build a snowman in their back yard (even if it will melt in a few hours). I loved how excited the kids got about snow.
Last but not least, I went to the Sheraton resort in Kona, which is at a very historic spot when it comes to the Hawai’ian royal family. I learned about King(s) Kamehameha I, II and III and the changes they made in Hawai’ian governance. They had to make decisions about the traditional laws when westerners came, like can you own land and should people accept Christianity.
Moving on from Hawai’ian culture, I had a very fun game night at Stefaniya and Nick’s. After a day at the beach we all tried AcroYoga, walking on a slackline and played Cards Against Humanity. Since my body is so used to waking up early, I went out on the terrace for the sunrise and had a really nice view down the mountain towards the ocean.
This week has gone by so fast and I don’t have many pictures, but I’ve been going to the beach and the park with kids and helping Malle out with photoshoots. One night I hung out with people and we played beer pong, which surprisingly had more rules than I thought it would. I think Americans like making things more complicated than they need to be (e.g. American football).
It’s so cool to see sea creatures in the wild. Kind of in the wild. If you’re out and about near the ocean, keep an eye out for whales. I’ve seen so many of them spout – blow out water – and occasionally there are dolphins jumping out. We saw turtles pretty closely at Hilton, since they came to say hello.
Malle took me to a few farmers markets in Waimea, which were also very fun. There were live musicians, a lot of local produce and things you can’t really find anywhere else. I saw a stand with girl scouts selling cookies and it was so American that I just had to buy some.
I hiked down to the Captain Cook monument to see another iconic place in Hawai’ian history. It took me about an hour to hike down and another hour back, but it was well worth it. The monument reads: “In memory of the great circumnavigator Captain James Cook, R N., who discovered these islands on the 10th of January, A.D. 1770 and fell near this spot on the 14th of February, A.D. 1779. This monument was erected in November A.D. 1874 by some of his fellow countrymen.”
It is a great spot for snorkeling, so it was so unfortunate I couldn’t do it. They have a nice coral reef, and I could see small bright yellow fish right by the shore and dolphins playing around a little further away. One of the dolphins jumped high up in the air, showing off.
adventures in... 