With the islands so close to Vancouver (about 5 1/2 h) and Anna being really convincing, I spontaneously decided to book the incredible cheap flight to Honolulu and take ten days off from work. I knew that traveling with Anna was going to be really uncomplicated, especially because we made our way through the Rockies under very unpredictable circumstances and never had any problems or arguments with each other.
Flying from Vancouver might have been the easier and more convenient option but not necessarily the cheapest. Instead of spending another 150$ for the flight from Vancouver we booked a bus ticket to Seattle and flew out of Tacoma airport which saved a lot of money.
Especially when going on a U.S. flight it is always worth looking up the prices for Bellingham or Seattle airport alternatively.
Anyway, after a 4-h bus ride and a 5.5-h flight we finally arrived in busy and touristy Honolulu, the capital of the Hawaiian islands. Located on Oahu it is home to 380,000 people (excluding the areas and suburbs that create Honolulu metro) and also a popular destination for millions of tourists every year.
We arrived at night and made our way to our couchsurfing host Camille, following our original plan. Unfortunately, by the time we hit Waikīkī, she already fell asleep and did not answer her phone. We ended up spending the night at the HI Hostel Waikīkī where we received a text in the early morning containing a big apology by Camille together with the promise to pick us up from where ever we might be.
With this promise in mind we went on to explore the city a little bit and to hike the short but scenic trail around Diamond Head, Honolulu's crater to the east. We walked the whole distance from downtown to the beginning of the trail only to find out that it is closed on weekdays due to constructions.
A little disappointed we went back to the hostel, tasted the first out of many pineapples that were about to come and finally got picked up by Camille.
She is quite a sweet girl, who is originally from the Virgin Islands, works for the U.S. navy and therefore comes around a lot. She lives right in Waikīkī in a luxurious apartment building on the 15th floor with a great view on downtown, the beach and the mountains in the north.
Another benefit from staying at this house was certainly the pool that we checked out the next morning.
It was there that we met Jack, a retired investment banker who, besides other properties in New York, Singapore and Marbella, owns an apartment on the 44th floor. He told us about his relatives and friends living in Germany and his limited knowledge of German. Out of a sudden he mentioned that he was a member of the Waikīkī Yacht Club and that one of the boats down by the docks was his and we were welcome there the next morning where he would take us out in his boat.
He left us speechless at the pool. There was of course no question whether to go or not.
But before that was a whole day ahead of us, full of possibilities and options. We were stoked for some history input.
One of the best places to go is certainly Pearl Harbor, where in 1941 the Japanese airplanes launched a massive attack on almost the entire U.S. Pacific fleet of battleships, cruisers and destroyers. The most tragic moment on that December 7, 1941 was definitely the explosion of battleship USS Arizona right after a bomb hit the ammunition magazine and caused the destruction of the ship in a huge fireball. USS Arizona sunk within seconds, taking away the lives of over 1,100 American sailors. The wreck of the ship still lies on the very same spot marking the resting place of the sailors who's bodies couldn't be recovered after the attack was over.
Later a memorial was built on top of the wreck enabling visitors to stand right above the ship. It is a strange feeling to be there knowing what happened and also reminding oneself of the mortal remains of 1,177 sailors still underneath the memorial's floor between the ships rusting steel walls (admittedly, this is not meant to be understood literally).
At this point let me quickly talk about the Hawaiian public transport as I think it is worth mentioning. Not in a good way, though. Because the transit on Oahu and especially in Honolulu is one of the worst I have ever seen. The company, just called "TheBus", has a simple website. Surprisingly, you are able to search for individual routes. After clicking the search button however, you immediately notice that they only provide a link to the public transfer option of google maps! How embarrassing! Since google maps does not have all the bus routes saved on its servers, you usually end up with the message "no results found"!
No one seems to know anything about the bus system including bus lines that end at certain points along a particular route at certain times of the day, whereas at other times they continue further on or even change the bus line. When you finally got on the right bus, make yourself ready to spend hours in the Honolulu traffic jams (especially at rush hour the streets of the city are packed with cars and even cause problems in other parts of the island!).
Enough complaints for now! ;)
The next morning we got up early and made ourselves ready to meet up with Jack. He awaited us in front of the Yacht Club and gave us a guided tour, explaining every single detail of the boats and ships we could see: the owner, the history of the owner, the name of the vessel, where it was built, etc.
Sometimes you can get too much information at once.
Anyway, shortly after that we went out with his electric boat "aloha!" and circled the yacht club and the harbour a bit before returning. Then Jack introduced us to a friend named Jeff who offered to take us out in his speed boat. That was fun! Jumping over the waves while heading towards Diamond Head, we had a great view on downtown and Waikīkī...followed by Honu...the sea turtles.
Because it was still early, we decided to spent the rest of the day at the north shore to watch the surfers and the big waves.
Even though the planned surfing contest has been canceled due to the "small" waves with 20-25 feet (6-8 m) of height, the beaches and the roads were full of people. The waves were gigantic and some of the surfers out there showed us a really amazing performance.
We walked along the beach up north and finally took the bus back to Honolulu in the evening.
The motto of the next day was shopping and relaxation. We went to the Ala Moana mall and of course once again took advantage of the pool and the beach!
Full of remorse the day after that, we decided to go for a hike to the Manoa Falls north of Honolulu which is supposed to be a really nice trail through the rain forest. Following a slippery path along a small rill for 30 min brought us to the falls that were not more than a tiny drop of water running down from the mountains. We could tell that it was really dry these days.
Because the hike was surprisingly short we decided to go on a little detour on the way back. So we went to the Lyon Arboretum with the amazing Botanical Garden attached. This is a research facility of the University of Hawai'i. A small path leads up through the rain forest passing by beautiful flowers and trees. Out of nowhere a statue of Buddha appears where visitors left gifts and oblations. A swarm of mosquitoes however brought a rough end to our excursion and we went home.
On Sunday, January 23, the time had come to get out of Honolulu and Oahu. Hawaiian Airlines connects all the islands with each other.
After deep consideration which island to choose, we decided to fly over onto the Big Island (which also has the same name as the whole archipelago: Hawai'i).
Because there is no public transit on that island, we additionally rent a car in order to circle the entire island in the three available days before leaving back to Oahu.
To save some money we intended to spent at least two out of the three nights in the car or on the beach instead of booking a dorm bed in a hostel.
Two major towns represent the western and eastern part of the Big Island: Kona (W) and Hilo (E). While Kona is the touristic center of the island with lots of hotels and tourist attractions, Hilo is the better starting point to see the main volcanoes on the island (Kilauea, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa).
That is why we booked a flight to Hilo where we landed in the early morning, picked up the car and immediately began driving through the town before heading to the Volcanoes National Park.
We did a details through the southeast tip of the island called Puna to see the small "outlaw" town of Pahōa. This is an alternative and hippie-ish bunch of houses - most of them built without permission but hey!...who cares!!! :)
It is the "outlaw" town of the region because there are many people living in the neighborhood who just don't want to be bothered by anyone. We went through the town that by that time (it was a Sunday) seemed to be dead. The detour ended at the town of Kalapana where in 1990 a lava flow destroyed almost the entire village. In an incredible action the church has been removed early enough to save it from the stream of melted rock - it is now located not far outside the village that although the scars are visible still is home to people. Since the only way to go further on is walking or using a 4x4 vehicle, we turned around and headed to the volcanoes National Park where we spent the night at the Holo Holo Inn, a neat and inexpensive hostel.
The next morning we were really excited, not necessarily because we would see volcanoes but rather because some of them (Kilauea and Mauna Loa) are still active. The Kilauea Crater which creates the center of the Volcanoes NP, in fact, is long overdue as far as eruption goes. The last explosion of lava happened in the 1980s and before that around every 15 years. Scientists expect an outbreak soon and although there is no evidence for an upcoming eruption of Kilauea, two of the smaller craters nearby - Halema'uma'u and Pu'u Ō'ō - recently were and still are emitting lava.
One explosion of Halema'uma'u (a crater within the Kilauea caldera) actually took place a few days before we arrived at the Volcanoes NP. By that time it was still spitting out tons of volcanic gases and sulfur.
That was also the reason why a huge part of the road that circles the caldera had been closed - entering would mean death by the high amount of sulfur in the air.
On the website http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hvo/cams/KIcam/ you'll find a live webcam that sends pics from the crater but also provides maps, pictures of recent outbreaks, etc.
Regardless of the road closure we still had a great view on the crater from the lookout. The attached museum provides interesting information about the history of Kilauea - by the way, one of the most active volcanoes in the world. The museum also contains the seismometers drawing the graphs of eruptions of the main craters nearby.
Though no signs of activity at the particular locations - probably good for us...before the last big eruption the warnings came only three hours in advance which is a short time period for evacuation.
The hiking trails through Kilauea caldera were closed, as well. So we hiked through a smaller crater to the east called Kilauea Iki. The hike was a little weird because we could hear that underneath the lava rock was hollow which does not give much confidence in the surface.
After we heard of the Chain of Craters Highway it was a matter of course to drive along that road south to the coast where we saw the huge fields of lava that came down from the smaller craters throughout the last three decades. The highway ended abruptly at the last lava flow that took away a good amount of road that usually would stretch all the way to Kalapana.
There is actually a lot of turning around going on on that island - roads are closed or inaccessible, deadly gases are in the air, etc. ;)
However we really wanted to see the sunset from the Mauna Loa lookout that was reachable by car. Mauna Loa is the world's largest volcano which means it consists of the highest volume of lava. Together with the slightly higher Mauna Kea they are even the highest mountains in the world - yeah, forget Mount Everest, K2 or the Nanga Parbat: measuring from the ground of the ocean instead of the sea level makes these volcanoes the highest on earth (around 10,000 meters/33,000 ft). Above sea level they still reach a height of approximately 4,200 m/13;800 ft! Mother nature did a good job here, eh?!
By the time we reached the lookout (it was an almost never ending road), the whole mountain was covered by clouds which made it impossible to see the top or the landscape below. Anyway, this lookout is where the hiking trail begins that leads up to the crater. It is supposed to be a three-day hike with free cabins along the way. So the trip to the lookout eventually made me wanna hike that trail one day!
Returning from the lookout it was already dark and we went back to the Kilauea caldera where we watched something amazing: the reflection of lava within Halema'uma'u crater on the steam of emitting gases. It was like a dance of red and orange colors in the dark hole of the crater. Breathtaking and relaxing at the same time.
We spent half of that same night driving to Kona where we spent the night on beach of a hotel. When we opened our eyes at 5 the next morning we looked into the face of a watch man of the hotel who surprisingly friendly and calm asked us to leave...what we did.
So this day started very early which gave us the chance to move further on to circle the island back to Hilo where we would return the car and catch our flight the next morning.
The highway follows the coast with lava fields here and there and some beaches where we watched Humpback whales jumping out of the water in the distance.
At noon we arrived at an archaeological side where they reconstructed a village of the native Hawaiian people. Some of them used to live in that same spot till the early 1900s.
We visited small towns and villages including Hawi, Polulu Valley, Waimea and the Waipio Valley (better known as the Valley of the Kings), the latter inhabited by Polynesians for thousands of years and still an isolated spot where visitors and tourists are not welcome unless invited.
One amazing thing about the Big Island is the rapid change of landscape from south to north: lava fields and sparse vegetation in the very south, the volcanoes in the center and rain forest along the coasts and green hills almost without trees in the north.
We came back to Hilo in the late afternoon and decided to drive to Kalapana in the south once again because we found out that there is a small road to the current lava flows that is only accessible before 5 p.m.
By dusk we reached the lava flows that are still part of the eruptions of the last years. It was spooky to look at the dark masses of lava and the red and orange lights of the glowing lava in between that disappeared just to show up at a different spot when the crust of cold lava breaks open and reveals the hot melted lava underneath.
We finally went back to Hilo, spent the night in the car and took our flight back to Honolulu.
That day and the next we spent at the beach or walking along the streets of Waikīkī before taking off back to cold and rainy Seattle and Vancouver.
PS: "Ku makou e hele, e!" is a passage of a Hawaiian legend/poem and means: "We stand all girded for travel!" which pretty much describes my present state of feeling.
