Kona, Hawaii (2020)

Trip to Hawaii (2020)

Around October 2019, Tova asked me what I would like to do for my 70’s birthday.  “Surprise me!” I answered.  A couple of weeks later she asked my permission to proceed.  What she had in mind was throwing a party for our family and our closest friends.  I thought about it and told her that I rather travel with her somewhere to have a destination birthday.  She loved the isea and asked me to pick a place, any place, and we will go there.

After giving it more thoughts, I decided that a trip to Hawaii will be great, especially in January and I set up my mind to travel to Kona, Hawaii, located on the Big Island.  

We planned the trip together, made the necessary arrangements and counted the days.

January, 15^th, 2020

Los Angeles – Kona, Hawaii

We woke up very early and ordered a Lyft to take us to LAX.  Our flight departed at 8:30 am and few hours later we landed in Paradise.

  

We picked up the reserved car and headed to the city and to the AirBnB apartment that we had reserved.  The location was great: 10 minutes walk to the beach, a quiet neighborhood and next to shops and restaurants.

We found a lovely apartment with a big bedroom, a nice bathroom, modern kitchen, Living Room and a large balcony overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

We unpacked and then took an afternoon nap.  I saw some residents sitting outside and I went down to talk to them.  I asked for some food recommendations and had a list for our entire stay.

We had dinner at a local favorite restaurant and had a terrific dinner.  

We then headed to Walmart and bought some goodies and necessary items.

We returned to our apartment and chilled out with ice cold beer on the balcony.

January, 16^th, 2020

Big Island, Hawaii

We made our own breakfast at our home and then drove towards the Lava Fields and Volcano Base of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano on the island of Hawaii. Its peak is 4,207 13,803 feet above sea level, making it the highest point in the state of Hawaii! Most of the volcano is underwater, and when measured from its underwater base, Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain in the world, measuring 33,500 feet in height. 

     

Mauna Kea is about a million years old, and has thus passed the most active shield stage of life hundreds of thousands of years ago.

At the base of the volcano we met few people (that looked like hippies) and they invited us to join them for a ceremony, which was actually a protest against government plans to install few antennas at the summit of the mountain.  We asked them some questions and this is what we gathered from them:

In Hawaiian mythology, the peaks of the island of Hawaii are sacred. An ancient law allowed only high-ranking aliʻi to visit its peak. We learned that Aliʻi in the Hawaiian language refers to the hereditary line of rulers, the noho aliʻi, of the Hawaiian Islands.

Ancient Hawaiians living on the slopes of Mauna Kea relied on its extensive forests for food, and quarried the dense volcano-glacial basalts on its flanks for tool production. When Europeans arrived in the late XVIII century, settlers introduced cattle, sheep and game animals, many of which became wild plants and began to damage the volcano's ecological balance.

   

We joined their demonstration and witnessed a ceremony that involved chanting and dancing.  It was amazing.

  

Our next stop was at the city of Hilo, located on the northeastern side of the island. Hilo offers breathtaking natural beauty plus all the amenities of a vibrant town. 

     

The region is blessed with dramatic waterfalls, fertile rainforests and blooming gardens, and after a short stop at the ocean front, we headed to the Akaka Falls, about 25 minutes from the city.  A rainstorm welcomed us to the site but that could not stop us.  We walked down and up the trail, passing a lash rainforest and few small waterfalls (one of them was about 100 feet was called Kahuna Falls) and after about half a mile we arrived to see the glory of Akaka Falls.

  

A ranger was there to welcome the tourists and talked about what is in front of us: The towering Akaka Falls drop 442-feet into a stream-eroded gorge and perhaps the island of Hawaii's most famous waterfall and that is because the fact that some waterfalls in Hawaii only appear when it rains, some kind of just sheet down the side of a mountain, but this falls is a thick column of water that always seems to have a strong flow.

We found the fall unique and impressive.

We were not done with waterfalls.  

Our next destination was the Rainbow Falls.  From what I've read and heard, this broad waterfall in the Wailuku River, was conveniently located within Hilo town, cascades over a lava cave that according to legends is home to the ancient Hawaiian goddess Hina, the goddess of the moon.





    

The rain had stopped and we found a beautiful site, once we arrived.  

The waterfall itself is a modest 80 feet high, which is not that high compared to the  Akaka Falls, we've just visited. However, the Rainbow falls are more easily accessible and it is possible to see the falls from very close, compared to the Akaka falls, where a steep canyon separated us from the base of the fall.

The Wailuku River rushes into a large pool below. The gorge is blanketed by lush, dense nonnative tropical rainforest and the turquoise colored pool is bordered by beautiful, although nonnative, wild ginger.  What a sight!!!

    

When we arrived this morning to Mauna Kea, a cloud was hovering over the crater and the group of people we had met earlier there, told us that in the evening the cloud will be gone.  We headed back to the site and they were right.  The crater was visible, though pretty far from the main road, but we were able to see it and view the snow on the upper slopes.

We arrived to Kona at around 8:00 pm and had a nice dinner at the same restaurant we had visited yesterday.

January, 17^th, 2020

 

Hawaii Volcano National Park

We woke up at 7:00 and had breakfast on our balcony.

     

We started driving on the west coast of the island. Along the way, we discovered lava fields and were impressed on how nature rebuilds the flora after a disaster (like the one in 2018).

  

We arrived to the main attraction of the island.  A place visited each year by millions of people: The Volcano National Park and Kilauela Volcano. The active volcano last erupted in 2018 destroying a huge chunk of the island.  Once in the Visitors Center, we had an introduction by a ranger that was extremely knowledgeable.  He gave us all the facts we needed to know and answered all of our questions.  He also gave us tips of what is worth seeing in a one day stay.  The next piece of education we received in the theater where a 20 minutes video explained and demonstrated the important fact regarding the volcano.

The big island consists in total of five separate volcanoes: the Kohala, Mauna Kea, Hualalai, Mauna Loa and Kilauea volcano. 
 measures 13,796 feet and is the tallest mountain in the state and the tallest sea mountain in the world. Mauna Loa is the largest volcano on Earth in terms of volume and area covered. The Hawaii Volcanoes National Park encompasses two of these volcanoes: Mauna Loa and Kīlauea.

Despite all of these impressive figures of Mauna Kea. the volacnao we had visited yesterday, The Kīlauea Volcano is the most famous of the Hawaiian volcanoes, and rightly so! It is the youngest and most active of the five volcanoes and has recently been erupting continuously between 1983 and 2018. It is the Kilauea volcano whose lava we have seen on TV just not too long ago, flowing into the ocean and whose immense Halema-uma-u crater crowns the park grounds.

Kilauea is the youngest and most active volcano on the island of Hawaii, and one of the busiest in the world. In recorded history, Kilauea has only had short periods of repose. It has covered almost 90% of its surface in lava flows within the last 1,000 years. Even the name Kīlauea translates to “spewing" or "much spreading”.

First forming underwater roughly 280,000 years ago, Kilauea is a fairly typical shield volcano with long, shallow slopes. Its surface makes up an area slightly smaller than the island of Oahu (wow!).

        

We drove a short mile and arrived to the Steam Vents (Pahoa) Trail.   As the name of this particular trail suggests, hikers are able to view a result of the nearby and still-very-active Kilauea Volcano: steam vents emanating from the lava-churning machine.  This hike is mere steps away from the parking lot.  The vents billow when ground water seeps down to the hot volcanic rocks and generates continuous plumes of steam.  Just a few feet below the surface, the ground is so hot that tree roots can’t survive, but nature adopts and we saw few trees and other flora.

  

We then drove the Lava Fields that were impressive and beautiful and continued to the Crater Rim Drive, which is about 11-mile drive that circles Kilauea Caldera. Driving around this loop we saw the park's main attractions: the Puu Puai Overlook, Devastation Trail and Kilauea Iki Crater Overlook.  However, rain was pouring down and we stayed inside the car, though we had plans to hike.

  

We continued to explore and drove on The Mauna Loa Strip Road, which took us to the Mauna Loa lookout point at an elevation of 6,662 feet. During the drive up (and down again) we passed many impressive volcanic features and got to see some sweeping views of the Ka’u district and the Kilauea volcano.

     

Our next attraction was Chain of Craters Road, where we reached the end of the road,. There was a short trail to the ocean and the famous Hōlei Sea Arch. A ranger, who warned us to stay on the main road, told us that at present, the sea arch is about 90 ft high.  This beautiful formation has a limited life span. The sea arch will eventually crumble and will no longer be a feature of the park. However, another will replace it as the cliff slowly migrates inland.

The ranger continued to explain and stated that This impressive sea arch was cut into the cliff of an ancient lava flow, about 550 years ago. The term used in the creation of this sea arch is "differential erosion", which is the difference in the hardness of various layers of lava flow.

 

As Tova returned to the car, I had to take a closeup photo of the arch.  I crossed the wired fence and got as close as I could to take some snapshots.

We returned to the main gate of the park and drove through Hilo back to Kona, arriving at around 10:30 pm.

January, 18^th, 2020

 

Kona

Happy Birthday to Me!

We started our day with breakfast on the balcony.  The sky was blue and gorgeous.

We headed out to the Tourist Zone in Kona.  The place reminded me a lot of Front Street in Maui. Many shops, cafes and restaurants and hundreds of tourist walking up and down the ocean front street.

     

We walked along the shoreline and saw quite a few fishermen hunting for their lunch.  We then stopped at Moku’Aikaua, Hawaii first Christian Church.  The place has lots of history and that is what I learned: The congregation dates to 1820 and the building was completed in 1837.  The congregation was first founded in 1820 by 2 members from the first ship of American Christian Missionaries, the Brig Thaddeus. They were given permission to teach Christianity by King Kamehameha II, and the Queen Regent Kaʻahumanu.

We strolled on the golden sand beach, stopping from time to time to pose for pictures.

      

When we returned to the car, I asked a taxi driver if he could tell me which his favorite beach is.  He did not hesitate: Kua Beach, also known as Manini’Owali Beach, he said!


     

We drove down (Thank you Google Map) and arrived to a secluded beach with huge waves and hundreds of people.  We found a spot (half shaded) and I tried to brave the waves.  They won!

We spend a couple of hours there and then returned to our apartment for a long afternoon snooze, after I made dinner reservations to a local seafood restaurant, promised to be one of the best!

We arrived to the Fish Hopper restaurant and received a table on the front balcony, overlooking Kailua Bay.  We sat for awhile admiring the beauty of the Pacific Ocean at sundown, displaying the most beautiful sunset.