Was the weekend. Nothing’s as good as the weekend, is it? Friday after work I went to look at a place to live and was not excited about it. It was too far away and reminded me of a boarding house. On my way back I stopped in Hanapepe for the Art Festival. Basically the stores on “historic main street” were open late. Nice cute little art stores, photography places, and this really great used bookstore. I walked around enjoying myself and looking at the tourists (there may have been 50 people walking around 15 stores). There were street performers too and I talked to the guitarist outside of the bookstore for a while and then headed back to Waimea and found myself on the beach enjoying the full moon. I love that place—there’s only been one day since I’ve been here that I’ve not found my way to the beach.
Saturday morning I sat around and did laundry and complained to myself how hot it was while I waited for Rick to get off of work (I can’t go exploring myself, now, can I?). Apparently this was the first Saturday in a few months that my group didn’t have to work. Rick and I hopped in the car and headed east for adventure. We stopped in Po‘ipu, the tourist hub of the South Shore. We drove past the big hotels and pristine beaches with oodles of floating bodies (snorkelers) to the Spouting Horn. There were shops lined along the walkway to the lookout and I decided I need to go back at some point and invest in a cute necklace. Spouting Horn is a place where the rock shelf protrudes over the water and when the waves come in there is a spray that shoots out of the hole in the rock. I think that we saw it during low tide—it only shot up 15 or 20 feet. It made a crazy noise too. Apparently there used to be a bigger one not far away and the spray went up 200 feet and apparently affected the sugar cane crop so a sugar company manager ordered it blasted in the 1920s. There’s a hole where it used to be. Saw a really nice beach covered in tourists and decided to move our quest onward…
We went through the Tree Tunnel near Po‘ipu where the trees reach across the road creating a little canopy. It was kinda cool. Then it was on to Kipu Falls. We drive to the middle of nowhere (which, ironically, was actually close to civilization) and hiked on a narrow trail through tall grass until we finally stumbled upon the falls. The funny thing is you couldn’t actually see the falls unless you were in the water. There were a few ways to get to the pool below: 1) Jump 20 feet off the edge of the falls, 2) climb a tree that goes over the water and fall/jump 30 feet into the water, or 3) take the swinging rope from the side and drop the 15-20 feet into the water. Unfortunately, I left my suit in the car. Maybe one day I’ll get the guts enough to try it. I think I’d pick the rope for my poison. We watched crazy guys fall into the water–it was a really peaceful surrounding.
After Kipu we stopped by the Menehune Fishpond. The Menehune are the Hawaiian equivalent to trolls. They’re a little race of people that live in the forest and were said to perform great feats at night. One such feat is the Fishpond which legend says was built for a princess and her brother in one night. Estimates of its age range as high as 1,000 years old. It’s not spectacular but the view was nice. I took Rick home and then headed out to a party.
One of my coworkers was having a 30-year anniversary party on Saturday night and I was invited. Though I had only met Charlie once, I thought I might be missing a good opportunity to meet people and take in some culture at the same time if I didn’t go. It turned out to be a great time. I recognized a lot of people from work and got to know them better. One of my coworkers introduced me to everyone and also made me try raw fish. It wasn’t horrible… The Hawaiians like to drink a lot so the evening went late while we watched hula and heard a Hawaiian band. I even got recruited to a paddling team which apparently just finished competition season. All in all I had a great time and was really glad that I braved it by going alone to a party where I knew, well, basically no one.
Sunday was a little less exciting. Lazy morning, I looked at another place to live. I didn’t realize how much I want an oven in my place. Then I headed as far around this island as I have been thus far as I kidnapped Rick and headed to the Coconut Festival in Kapa‘a. It was an hour or so drive and the East Shore seemed really nice. The Coconut Festival was a craft fair of sorts with lots of vendors and coconut byproducts. I drank coconut water (a coconut with a straw in it) and had some food flavored with coconut. There was also a musician who is supposedly the best slack guitarist in the world—he was pretty good. And that was pretty much it—Sunday night my roommate Nicole, Rick and I grilled out and called it a successful weekend. Maybe not as strenuous as the first, but, nonetheless, a great weekend.
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