We land in Honolulu but some air china plane is at our gate. We must wait 20minutes on the plane ,. Let me out!!!.. Finally we are allowed out. Alla rushes to the agent and find out that our connecting flight is still good. We relax in this layover. I stretch my legs for a long while. we try airport Chinese food and feel as the Chinese have wronged us twice in an hour. Yucky meal. I find a small ben and Gerry's cup and it helps dilute the oily meal. As we attempt to board and the agent says "wait, I don't have you on this flight!". The nerves begin. It takes a few minutes to sort things out and we board but there is a question if our luggage made it. They do not know.
We depart in Hilo and right away see our luggage offloaded. Sigh of relief..
Quickly we get the car and head south surrounded by lush greenery and the shadow of the mountain. It will be dark soon. We stop at a small local chain called Walmart and stock up on water bread, Nutella and other essentials. We continue south while the sun sets rapidly and now it is very dark. There is not much in the way of street illumination, later we would learn that this is done to reduce air pollution to allow the mega telescopes on the mountain a better view of the heavens.
The drive is slow here, 55mph is the max and most places the max is 43 or 35 for long stretches. The mountain roads are not built for speed, but the roads themselves are well maintained. We reach the first hotel, which to me is more of a fancy hostel. A large house with 9-10 guest rooms, shared bathrooms, and a kitchen. Nice rooms but the feel is of a hostel, which is fine by me.
We crash.
The alarm wakes us before 3 AM. I head to the kitchen and make egg sandwiches and Nutella Sandwiches; we pack some water and supplies and drive for 30 minutes in the low illuminated roads. At four a.m., we meet John from Epic Lava. He gives us a backpack with water snacks, flashlight and gloves. We follow him for a while. Park, then, climb aboard his van with some other travelers and continue on dirt roads. We disembark, and walk quietly, since here in the lava fields there are actual houses. The hot Lava is 40 minutes' walk away, but still. Too close to the heat. It is a bit after 4 a.m, I am wearing short pants and a Sleeveless t-shirt, and it feels nice and warm. The cold is left back home. We begin the hike, first on a dirt road, then on the lava field.
The now basalt is a large black field of interesting rock formations, the ground is very uneven and we go up down and sideways. The high calcite content makes the field glow as if made of glass and it crackles below our feet. The stars are brilliant above. The milky way is clearly visible, every now and again we stop for everyone to catch up and not get lost.in the dark it all looks the same, but in the distance we can see the red lava glow at times.
Dawn breaks and shortly after, we reach the gates of hell. A few meters away we stop awestricken. This is creation itself. Rock is born here. The lava spews out of the rock, crackles and forms beautiful shapes. We are near the source of this 1000 plus Celsius material. The cold lava is black, the lava from yesterday is sliver and the fresh is red hot. It pours out, and quickly cools and becomes silver, which helps determine where you can step and where you would better not. It's cool 10 meters away and gets real hot the closer you get. At first, we take photos with the Lava behind us. However, we get braver and get closer and closer. We hop above tendrils of the not super-hot stuff. I stand above it and there is a warm tendril just below me, a wrong step here would be disastrous. Alla by accident steps on one of the cooler tendrils. She has good shoes and quickly moves her feet without touching the real thing.
At one point, I almost slip and land very close to the magma. There are lots of camera here and they take a falling photo of me.
The lava flow is not linear. It would flow from one point, stop and then flow from another, and every new flow is an owww moments for us.
We begin exploring the area, examining more lava flows and finding more angles to shoot. At one point we see an area between flows. I go there to get a shot of me in between the slow moving flows. Wow, the heat at this point is beyond imaginable. I can feel myself burning alive and stay there for merely seconds. Too hot for me.
A few times, we moved away, just a few meters to cool down. This experience is dehydrating. The sun comes out gloriously over the pacific and god like beams of light hit the ocean through the clouds. It is expected to get warmer still as the hot sun shines on the black rock and the entire lava field becomes a furnace, but the rare clouds in this area spare us. After an hour plus near creation everyone is tired. We wish pelee (the goddess here) a wonderful day and we make our way back through the lava fields, enjoying the interesting rock formations. The sun is out now, it is hot, and we are both out of water. Alla, which usually drinks very little, has finished her 1.5 liters bottle, so did I, but I drink a lot anyways.
On the way back John's wife Jessica who is our back escort on this trip and came with her 10 year old daughter entertains us. Apparently she was a movie stunt person and an equestrian gymnast- those people that see a moving horse, jump on it from side to side... crazy people , well she stopped after shattering her hip. Now everyday they take people to the Lava.
We reached the car and I consumed a water bottle in seconds.
Btw, I am sitting here on the porch of a nice home we found with airB&B overlooking the pacific from the Kona mountain side. Dawn is breaking and another exiting day will begin.
However, back to the past…
After the lava, we went to Uncle something. I forgot the name. This appears to be some sort of hippy colony with various food huts serving more natural food. At first, I try a great chocolate shake made from local ice cream. So good after the burning morning. I stay away from the healthy foods, lots of avocado, whole food and the like. Alla gets a bizarre soup and past combo, devours some then sends me to get burgers…, which were very good.
From here, we drive to ahalanui Beach Park. We change our clothes in the bushes, cooled down in the outdoor shower and enter a small pond of sorts. This is a tidal pool. Ocean water comes in on top of the wave breakers and create small wave pool. Kids are here on little boards and other people snorkel in here. The water is soothing, but leg cramps force me to get out and stretch. We are here for 30 minutes in between fish and crabs. Then head for kapoho tidal pools. We park outside a village and walk in. here the natural rocks has formed a series of small pools. In less than a minute, I see a little eel in a water crevice, so pretty. We go in and out of the pools where people snorkel, but we do not have snorkeling gear. We do see some nice fish here and there. We enjoy this snorkless paradise for an hour and then walk back to the car. Next stop, we head for Walmart again to get snorkeling gear, we stop at a few other shops for more essentials and make our way back to the hotel. Due to roadwork, there is a little traffic jam and I drive through back roads. In this little narrow road with no houses I see a sign- no littering 1000$ fine. A hefty sign. A bit after on this same nowhere road I see the sign again- 1000$ fine no littering. The high fine made it memorable. Later we would see similar signs in other places but for less. If you litter in a national park 500, but on this nameless street it is double.
We shower in the hotel and I manage a 20 minutes power nap. We barely get up and head for Volcano national park. It is about 4 PM now; we choose an easy and popular rim hike. At first, you go by various smoke vents of Sulphur fumes surrounded by lush rain forest with beautiful ferns and trees, and then we reach the caldera rim of this huge volcano and see the lava fields below. We walk for close to 2 hours and it rains on the way back, but we are supplied with rain coats and short pants and it is not cold at all. The Plan is to eat at Thai Thai, which is surprisingly a Thai food place. However, starving Alla opts for the volcano café in the park, though in her research it did not get raving reviews, but hunger does the talking and this place is closer.
I like edamame, but it does not work with Sesame oil. I get fish and chips and get some kind of fish sticks, they were decent Alla does not enjoy her chicken much but she does like the desert. We asked the server for a list and she said Kona coffee brown. We ask again, Kona coffee brown is the answer - so Alla gets it and devours it, I do not touch coffee in any form. All and all, not a horrible place, but Alla suggested going to the Thai food place next…
We wake up at around 4 am. I wake up, make hard-boiled eggs, and sunny side up breakfast with the mandatory Nutella sandwiches we check out and head back to Volcano Park after stocking up with oranges and snacks. We drive to Kilauea iki trailhead and begin hiking the gorgeous rain forest trail along the crater rim. The forest is bright green with ferns and on occasion, we see the caldera below in the misty morning. We extend our hike to Biron ledge, a trail that goes in between 2 Calderas. We imagine a narrow trail in between the two, but this trail is disappointing. It is beautiful, but shows little in caldera views. We return to the Iki trail and descend 400 feet into the caldera itself. This is not the big caldera, that one is closed, unstable ground, deadly fumes and the like. As we descend, we leave the lush forest and enter a lava desert. On the way down Alla reminisces "do you remember when we went to that amazing lava, it was so beautiful and that mazing crackling". I quickly reply, "I remember it like it was yesterday" we laugh, it was the day before…
Here in the caldera, there are some bushes and trees here and there; finding a place to survive in the cracks of the basalt and the green to black contrast is incredible. The mile + long trail in the caldera itself takes us from side to side and we can see huge cracks and strange rock formations. Nature's power in all its glory. There is smoke from various vents and we walk between the Ahu trail-markers (Ahu is a cairn- or a pile of rocks). We reach the far side and ascend up the lush forest once more.
We stop for a little snack and rest and I see Alla toss something on the ground. I ask what that was and she lies, something fell from the tree… I get a closer look and I see something not from a tree.
I do not like littering, especially in a park so I chastise Alla for crimes against nature and give her a 1000$ fine…
We reach the top and go to another small trail of lava Tube. A large cavern, fairly rounded where Lava used to flow then slowly make our way on the rim path with spectacular views now that the mist has cleared.
We reach the car and take the rim drive. This road passed through many craters and lava field. This is the stop, take a picture and move on sort of road. Therefore, we do what tourists do and take photos. I nearly fall into one of the craters at one point, so many of them, almost missed the one.
We continue along this road with many stops and trailhead, the park is mostly on the mountain, but some of it is closer to the coast and we drive down to the coast and suddenly without the clouds protection it is boiling hot. We chose a short 1.5 miles hike to see petroglyphs. It is so hot that my feet are burning. We reach the end where the Polynesians carved art in the basalt. Lots of circles, perhaps the sun, and some drawings of people. It is unclear how and why they lived here, so hot. We go back to the car and again I finish a bottle in seconds. We continue to the end of the road and the ocean. There is no beach here. Instead, you have cliffs of basalt eaten away by the massive waves. The waves crash to the rocks and spray up 20-30 meters above. We take photos of this massive force in full display. There is a local Popsicle stand of sorts here and we devour the most expensive Popsicle in history. There is a ranger here telling people to slow down, she is guarding a pair of Nene's. There are lots of Nene crossing sings all over this park. Nene is a goose and we see a couple resting in the shade. They are an endangered species so the ranger is doing angels job in the scorching sun.
We would see a few more Nene's but I do not have a good shot of this white goose. There are also tons of Mongos here; we usually see them next to trashcans. This small khaki white predator is fast moving and does not like to pose. Nevertheless, they are abundant, I am sure I will get a good one.
We drive back the rim road up the mountain and head for lunch. Now we are wiser and go to the Thai place. Finally a good meal. I think this is the first time I am eating spring rolls (since cabbage is a new discovery), they are great with the nut sauce and later I devour my Pad-Thai and Alla consumes her egg-fried rice. Alla orders some mango desert and I am unable to withstand the lava cake desert, so fitting here.
We hit the road west along the southern side of the island, where volcano fields are replaced with lush green, and here and there, you can see horse and cattle farms. We pass by the most southern bakery in the US, they have a sign saying so. Alla Gets bread pudding. Then we pass the most southern dentist in the US. I nap a little as Alla drive to the most southern point in the US.
To be continued..
