Thursday - Pahoa

A relaxing day, hanging a bit, being lazy.... in the afternoon we went to Pahoa, a small town that reminds me of the old wildwest towns you see in movies... Wooden painted houses, with porches, verandas , stairs. Only the cars give it a modern look.

Latest update... thursdaynite i felt something crawling on my arm in my sleep, took it off with my left hand and yay: got stung again by a wasp in my finger.... pretty nasty stings, it woke me up in a second....

Wednesday - the Vulcano

Visiting the Kilauea vulcano crater. The big crater is surrounded by a road , the crater rim drive, but the road is partly closed due to danger to health because of the toxic gasses that started to steam out of the side of a smaller crater ( Halema'uma'u crater ) at the start of this year. ( see pic )














At several points near the trail steam just comes out of holes in the ground...
The lavaflow that is still active ( it started in 1983 and still continues ) is coming from a point southeast of the crater.

We also visited a lavatube, which is so big you could visit it. Now its under a giant piece of rainforest. Part of it is lit and easy accessable, the last part however is dark and can only be visited by the use of flashlights. We had our little ledlights (Shelly her headlight, me my ledlight keyhanger bought at "Action" shop for 60 eurocents). We went 300 meters down in complete darkness, and coming at the end we dimmed our lights and just sat there, in complete darkness, in earths womb, hearing only the dripping of water coming through the ceiling and our breathing....
How is a lavatube born... A stream of lava runs, the outside cools down and hardens. The inside keeps flowing in the middle. That way the outside forms a sort of tunnellike form. you can actually see a lot of these smaller tunnels in the landscape. Sometimes the ceilings collapse, a hole forms and makes a sort of chimney.

Tuesday - lavaflow

There s a constant lavaflow coming from the Kilauea vulcano. That lavaflow ends where it reaches the ocean. This remarkable place, where air, fire, earth and water meet we visited on tuesday. At a safe distance ( grrrr, hurray for authorities ) we were able to make some nice pictures. Really impressive !!

Wasp attack ! - mondaynight

In Shelly's house lives a wasp colony, a nest. As i entered the bed on mondaynite a stinging pain hit my leg. Then another, and another. A real deep pain, of course i was clear awake in a second. Seemed that Shelly pulled a blanket on the bed, which hung over the bars near the roof. The wasps were in there , looking for shelter and warmth... So ok, i got stung by jungle wasps. All part of the jungle life.

Curious gekko approaching the waspnest

Monday

Monday... in the morning relaxed, just enjoying waking up in the jungle, all the different sounds, smells, visions of birds, trees, plants...
In the afternoon we drove to a hot pond, a pond that is heated by the vulcanic activities in the region. The water is very salty and its very relaxing to swim and /or float in. The temperature is around 33 C.

The rock in the picture is in the lava landscape (cinderquarry) we cross, the rests of the 1960 lavaflow....

Sunday.....

Sundaymorning, drove around a bit, visited the sundaymarket, got some necessary groceries. And for a quick shop of postcards (yes, Ad, its coming.... ) in the hippielike town Pahoa ( see pic - the nice purple house is a shop ).







Later in the afternoon we walked to the ocean, to a lavapool , a naturally formed pool. During upcoming tide its filled with the ocean waters.
Its very relaxing just to sit there and watch the oceanwaves break on the lavablocks.... feeling and hearing the force of nature.....

These flowers are all over the area here, plumeria...
so beautiful, they smell lovely....

arrival....

Saturday.... after waiting 9 hours in Honolulu for my flight to Kona, i was ready to board. But my e-ticket wasn t listed in the reservation list.... NWA, where i booked the tickets seemed to have forgotten to book my changed flightschedule.... there i was, the plane leaving without me. Fortunately the boarding director (! - just the guy that beeped the boarding passes ) and a admin lady helped to correct all in the system and i could get the next flight 45 minutes later.
So at last, arrived in Kona.... hunted my suitcase, which arrived earlier...
And i met Shelly, she picked me up with her blue V8 pickup. We went for a drive around town, look at some shops, had a trip to the ocean. Wow, though the weather was grey it still made deep impressions on me.... the lavastones in the water, the shells, so different from ours, the waves that show the very blue color of the water....

After that we shopped for some food, and drove to Shelly s little farm on the other side of the island. I saw a lot of vulcanic terrain, lava soil, dry grassy terrain and rain forrest terrain. Its all there, the Big Island has it all.... impressed with the forrest Shelly lives in , many birds sounds , frogs and whatever... in the distance there are the sounds odf the waves of the ocean... is this paradise ?

to be continued with a happy sigh....

travel.....

At Seattle now....... waiting for connecting flight to Honolulu, bought me some online time....

Well, in Amsterdam, at the airport, i got a cross examination. They needed to know everything, even the adress where i was going to stay in Hawaii. OOPS, i didnt have Shelly s adress... and they really wouldn t let me board. I had Shelly s PO box nr. but that wasn t enough.... i tried to get online, Shelly wasn t there. I phoned, Shelly didn t answer. i looked up a phoney adress on google maps.... and tried another phonecall... nothing... ahhhh, she called back, heared me at last. So at last the boarding could proceed.

Went here in Seattle through customs/immigration. Again very tough examination interviews.....
Well i made it... Honolulu here i come....

pic taken at Seattle airport

first entry

Hello, welcome to this weblog. Special thanks to Coen , who supplied me with the Asus EEE Mini -laptop, which i will use to create this log. Hehe, yes, Sinead, gadgetgeek..... I am indeed...